Each year, an estimated 29 million adults aged 65 and older fall, and a recent study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 2015 alone older adults’ falls cost $50 billion. In a recent blog in Health Affairs, GW researchers offer policy and practice recommendations for scaling up utilization of falls prevention interventions and risk assessments.
In the blog, Katie Horton, Gregory Dwyer, and Naomi Seiler of the George Washington University School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management discuss initiatives designed to prevent falls that employ a variety of different strategies. Some, such as falls risk assessment and medication management, occur in clinical settings with the help of health care providers. Others, such as exercise and mitigation of fall hazards in the home, occur in nonclinical settings and may involve nontraditional providers such as community health workers.
View the blog, which includes policy recommendations for increasing insurance coverage and provider and patient uptake of these interventions, here.