No abstract

This study assesses consumer-directed home and community services for older persons by examining public programs that serve this population in eight states. These programs give beneficiaries, rather than agencies, the power to hire, train, supervise, and fire workers. Most stakeholders interviewed, in addition to the quantitative research, indicate that many older beneficiaries want to and can manage their services, although significant issues arise for persons with cognitive impairments. Research results suggest better, or, at least, no worse, quality of life for beneficiaries when they direct their services, although quality of services remains a contentious issue. For workers, consumer-directed care has some disadvantages, including fewer fringe benefits. With exceptions, state agencies have not provided extensive consumer or worker support or aggressively regulated quality of care.

The nexus of aging and disability, characterized by the phenomenon of aging with a disability, will become more visible as the population ages and the number of people with disabilities surviving to midlife increases. This article addresses 3 interrelated issues critical to the fields of aging and disability: increasing demand for community-based long-term services and supports, a paucity of evidence-based programs demonstrating effectiveness in facilitating independence for those aging with a disability, and lack of a federal infrastructure to support coordinated investments in research-to-practice for this population. Suggestions for federal interagency collaborations are given, along with roles for key stakeholders.

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Identifying differences in a key social trait between two populations of die same species is important for understanding the evolution of sociality. Previous studies of new colonies in Exoneura bicolor, an Australian allodapine bee, have shown that there are high levels of kin cofounding in a montane population. The only study to examine intra‐colony relatedness in a heathland population has found that new multifemale colonies are not formed by kin. In this study we used an experiment to investigate both cofounding behaviour and intra‐colony relatedness in E. bicolor from a heathland population. Nest substrate was placed either 0.05 or 1 m distant from source nests in a novel environment. Although there were no differences in cofounding rate or intra‐colony relatedness between die two treatments there was, overall, a high rate of cofounding: 53% of new nests were multifemale, approximately twice as high as found in previous field‐based studies. Relatedness among cofoundresses was not only different from zero, r± SE = 0.597 ± 0.097, but almost identical to that found in montane populations. A constraint, such as nest substrate distribution, is suggested as a proximate factor affecting the expression of cofounding behaviour in E. bicolor. The implication of such proximate constraints for inferring the phylogenetic origins of social behaviour is discussed.