Research Alert: September 25, 2024

States and Rural Communities With and Without the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE)

The purpose of this policy brief is to measure sociodemographic differences in areas with and without a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) organization headquarters among rural communities and by state-level PACE availability and headquarters location.

Key Findings:

• States with PACE have smaller shares of rural residents than states without PACE (23% vs. 39%).
• States with rural-headquartered PACE organizations have four times the median proportion of residents who identify as non-Hispanic Black compared with states without any PACE organizations (11% vs. 3%).
• Rural communities with a PACE headquarters differ from rural communities without a PACE headquarters along sociodemographic lines, including having more residents who identify as Hispanic (4% vs. 2%) or non-Hispanic and a race other than white alone (13% vs. 9%), higher educational attainment (58% vs. 50%), higher unemployment (4% vs. 2%), greater geographic mobility (13% vs. 7%), more residents without private transportation to work (5% vs. 1%), shorter travel time to work (73% vs. 64%), more occupied housing units (88% vs. 81%), and lower rates of home ownership (67% vs. 80%).

Additional Resources of Interest:

• More FORHP-funded research on Aging
• More information about the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
• More information from the Rural Health Information Hub's topic guide: Community Supports for Rural Aging in Place and Independent Living