Economic Disability and Health Determinants of the Hazard of Nursing Home Entry

A Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate economic determinants of the conditional probability of first nursing home entry during a 34-month period for a panel of disabled older persons who resided in the community at the initial survey. Allowing for death that competes with first entry and end-of-survey censoring produced the following results. Wealth significantly reduces the hazard of nursing home entry. The price elasticity of the hazard of nursing home entry is estimated to be -0.7. Also, nursing home entry is positively related to the opportunity cost of informal caregiver time faced by the family.