RAND research on population and aging analyzes demographic and immigration trends and explores a range of concerns, from family planning to religion to discrimination. RAND also addresses vulnerable populations—such as the elderly and the poor—analyzing retirement and other aspects of financial decisionmaking, welfare, and end-of-life issues.
Commentary
Perhaps most tragic of all are the disasters that are wholly preventable: the deaths, maimings, and crushed livelihoods that result from human callousness or indifference, writes Jonah Blank.
Announcement
To celebrate our first 60 years, we created 60 Ways RAND Has Made a Difference, an online book to illustrate our most notable contributions. On our 65th birthday, we provide five of the most recent ways in which we at RAND are proud to have made a difference.
Commentary
When planning for the future, we should understand that the capacity to predict the future is rather limited and poor. Rather, an ability to anticipate plausible trends and their potential consequences is more realistic, writes Stijn Hoorens.
News Release
The rising cost of Medicare can be cut through strategies such as increasing premiums and raising the eligibility age, but those moves could drive many elderly Americans from the program, leaving them with limited access to health services.
Commentary
One doesn't need a clear link to a global terror group to carry out an attack; one needs only the resources, the means and an Internet connection. But the global nature of these communities and their online links also create openings police can exploit.
Report
Describes several approaches for detecting racial profiling by police and calls for their use in monitoring the implementation of state and local immigration laws.
Journal Article
This study examined the association between individual (HIV risk) and structural (service access) factors and past year HIV testing.
Commentary
It is time for the government in partnership with industry to return to the drawing board to craft a plan that will provide protection for the more than 9 million people who will need care for dementia by 2040, writes Michael D. Hurd.
Commentary
At the rate that the U.S. population is aging, the total cost of dementia could reach half a trillion dollars a year by 2040. Those who care for impaired relatives and friends are acutely aware of the effects of dementia, and unfortunately they are all too familiar with its costs, writes Kathleen J. Mullen.
Journal Article
Ongoing efforts to profile physicians on their relative cost of care have been criticized because they do not account for differences in patients' socioeconomic status (SES).
Report
Identifying the costs of dementia is challenging because persons who have it are likely to have co-existing chronic health problems, making isolating the costs among other costs difficult. Also, it is unclear how to attribute a monetary cost to informal caregiving.
Commentary
If this issue were to be decided on the basis of public health benefits, the outcome would be clear: Condoms indisputably prevent both unintended pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, writes Chloe Bird.
Content
Understanding social and environmental factors, such as public parks, that influence physical activity is essential to designing interventions to improving public health. But what role does socioeconomic status play?
Commentary
The path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.
Report
Explores the role entrepreneurship plays in the lives of the economically disadvantaged in both India and the United States.
Commentary
Non-Persian ethnic minorities make up roughly 40 to 50 percent of Iran's population. Marginalized from society, they may choose a path of political apathy. On the other hand, Tehran's refusal to acknowledge minority rights may lead to future ethnic insurgencies and uprisings.
News Release
The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer.
Journal Article
The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer. The greatest cost is associated with providing institutional and home-based long-term care rather than medical services.
Journal Article
We find that pre-migration political experiences impart a lasting post-migration interest in home-country politics and that such effects are substantial compared with the impacts associated with other cross-border connections.
Blog
While much has been written on the electoral strength of Islamists in Egypt, most of the analysis has been done at the national level, ignoring regional divides within the country. A new report identifies the areas where Islamist parties run strongest, and the areas where non-Islamists are most competitive.
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