Health disparities among older women: identifying opportunities to improve quality of care and functional health outcomes.

Older women experience a high burden of chronic illness, disability, and comorbidity, and this burden is highest among socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority women. The consequences of a mismatch between the organization, delivery, and financing of health care for older women and their actual needs fall disproportionately on low-income and minority women. New sources of data, such as the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey, a new quality measure for Medicare+Choice plans, will provide valuable information to practitioners about the health and functioning of older women in general and about socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority women in particular. This information can be used to develop and implement interventions to improve the quality and outcomes of care for vulnerable subgroups of older women. There is cause for optimism that by improving the quality of clinical preventive services and the management of common chronic conditions and geriatric syndromes it will be possible to improve functional health outcomes, prevent or postpone disability, and extend active life expectancy for all older women while making progress toward eliminating health disparities among the most disadvantaged.