Abstract
Concern about the efficiency and effectiveness of increasingly costly health and welfare services for older persons stimulates interest in systematic evaluation of alterna tive programs. While a single, optimal system for program evaluation and resource allocation does not exist, a strategy developed at Duke University is promising. This strategy, which meets the conditions of a quasi-experiment, has three elements: (1) a reliable, valid procedure for assessing five dimensions of individual functioning; (2) a procedure for disaggregating complex service programs into standard generic units; and (3) a matrix which relates changes in func tioning over time to exposure to identified aggregates of generic services. Partial and complete applications of the strategy in two communities are illustrated.
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