National Long Term Care Survey

Background

Since September 2000, funded by grants from the National Institute on Aging, Unicon has been developing NLTCS Utilities, a counterpart to CPS Utilities, facilitating access to the National Long Term Care Survey, conducted by Duke University's Center for Demographic Studies (CDS).

The NLTCS is an important longitudinal study of the elderly. Survey participants are drawn from Medicare rolls, and were interviewed in 1982, 1984, 1989, 1994, and 1999, as long as they were still living and willing to participate. New subjects join the survey as needed to make up for mortality losses. Next-of-kin interviews were attempted for those subjects surveyed in 1982 and 1999 who had died during the following two years.

Current release

Version 3.2 of NLTCS Utilities was released in March 2006. It includes all the features and data in the original release (see below), plus the next-of-kin data for subjects of the 1999 survey.

This version contains numerous enhancements over the original release. Most significantly, it enables data extractions to be filtered on longitudinal properties of the data. For instance, it allows the user to extract data for subjects whose ability to travel outside of walking distance has deteriorated from one survey to another. Since most NLTCS variables are repeated without significant change from one survey to the next, a wide variety of trend-dependent data can be captured using this feature.

The illustration below shows the user interface NLTCS Utilities provides for specifying a longitudinal properties filter.

Version 3.2 also provides a comprehensive set of options for combining extractions from multiple source files into a single output file. For instance, extractions from multiple survey years may be combined, in either wide format (one record per person, with variables suffixed to identify the year) or long format (multiple records per person, with an auxiliary variable identifying the year).

The 1999 next-of-kin data included in this version not only repeats variables included in the 1984 survey (principally the health and living conditions of deceased 1982 survey subjects prior to death), but includes new variables documenting the decedents' financial condition at death, and a set of variables decribing their nutrition and feeding ability prior to death.

Version 3.2 provides additional features supporting usage by disabled persons, in compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. For instance, all functions may be executed with the keyboard alone, following standard usage protocols, as an alternative to using the mouse.

Original release

Version 3.1 of NLTCS Utilities was released three years earlier, on March 14, 2003. It included CDS's Final Version 1.0 data, released March 3, 2003, and the corresponding CDS Analytic file. Among its features were:

Individual documentation pages for all variables (more than 6,000)
Meaningful variable naming, cross-referenced to CDS names
Value tabulations for all applicable variables
Helpful information on age variables, person rosters, and weights
Tools to find variables via topics lists and by searching
Data extractions for user-specified variables, optionally filtered by value
Direct transfer of extracted data into user's analysis tools
Merged extractions from survey and Analytic files
User-friendly documentation and results screens
Comprehensive User's Manual and Help screens
'How-To' guides for the new user

All these features, and more, are included in Version 3.2.

Some of the Version 3.1 screens are shown below. Click to enlarge.

Downloadable demonstration version

Since the data themselves are subject to strict privacy regulations, a demonstration version without data files has been prepared and can be downloaded here. It contains the same content and features as the full version, but, instead of showing extracted data, it presents sample output files simulating the results of a data extraction request, allowing the user to browse the various extraction options provided.

The demonstration version is itself a valuable tool. Try it out.

The same comprehensive set of documentation files is included with the demonstration version as is supplied with the full version. You will need 350MB of free disk space and about fifteen minutes of time for the download and installation. IMPORTANT: If you had previously downloaded and installed the demonstration version of the NLTCS Utilities Beta version, you MUST uninstall it AND delete the installation directory (\Program Files\NLTCS Utilities Demo if you accepted the default) before installing the new demonstration version.

Ordering information

To receive a CD containing the full version of NLTCS Utilities, users are required to have executed a Data Use Agreement (DUA) with National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA). To request a DUA, follow NACDA's Data Request Procedure.

Once you have a NACDA DUA, please print a copy of our DUA Addendum, complete it, and send it to us.

NLTCS Utilities is priced at $400. Delivery can be made immediately upon receipt of order and DUA. The CD is for the exclusive use of the individual authorized under the DUA.