Health, financial security, and long-term care shape well-being later in life. But long-standing differences across age, race, and sex mean that not all older Americans have the same opportunities to meet these needs and age with dignity. 

The Aging Opportunity Dashboard, developed by the Urban Institute and AARP, aims to help address these challenges. It offers state- and county-level data that policymakers, advocates, researchers, and community leaders can use to identify and address disparities affecting adults ages 50 and older. But what should they do with that information?

This series of briefs can help decisionmakers translate the dashboard data into action. Each brief offers promising strategies that state and local policymakers and practitioners can pursue to improve older adults’ access to long-term health and economic success. They also document disparities in each domain across age, geography, race and ethnicity, and sex and include profiles of select counties that could benefit from efforts to narrow disparities. We also provide a technical appendix that details our methods for each category.  

Briefs and technical appendixes for the dashboard’s financial security, long-term care, and SNAP data are forthcoming.