Defining Poverty as an Eligibility Requirement for Supportive Services

Abstract Deciding which individuals qualify as “poor” often depends on how each country or municipality defines the term ‘poverty’. In the United States, program eligibility is often tied to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), using 100% of the FPL as a cut-off for receipt of services. However, research has shown that incomes of 200% of the FPL and higher are often needed to establish even minimum levels of economic security. Using data from an omnibus health study conducted in 2018 that included 1,581 persons ages 60+ who were asked about their health and service needs, we compared persons making 100% of the FPL or less to persons making 101%-199% and 200%+, respectively. Results show that poor health status and need for services among persons in the 101%-199% are similar to those with incomes less than 100% FPL, and significantly higher than persons with incomes at 200%+ of the FPL.

was associated with informal help-seeking intentions (p < .05). For EM subtypes, face-saving was associated with overall help-seeking intentions for financial exploitation (p < .05), but not on physical mistreatment, psychological mistreatment, and caregiver neglect. Face-saving was not associated with help-seeking behaviors. Study findings underscore the significance of a unique cultural value in understanding EM help-seeking intentions among Chinese older adults. Cultural constructs should be considered in future EM research in diverse populations.

ACCESS AND BARRIERS TO USE OF LONG TERM SERVICES: CONTEXTUAL ISSUES
Chair: Allen Glicksman Co-Chair: Lauren Ring Discussant: Norah Keating The challenges that some older adults face in accessing both health and social services is a topic of continuing concern. This panel will focus on contextual issues that often shape specific challenges. These contextual issues usually emerge either from issues of diversity among the older persons themselves (for example, minority status or foreign born) and diversity between the ways in which services are offered (usually established at the national or in the case of the United States, at the state level). The intersection of these two forms of diversity often define the specific challenges faced by older persons in accessing health and social services. Further, unexpected events, such as the COVID pandemic, can affect both types of diversity (greater challenges for persons who do not speak the dominant language; inability of services to quickly adapt to radically changed environment). Our panel will address these issues through four presentations, each taking a different look at the ways in which diversity affects access. Our first paper, by Torres, will place this discussion in wider context by presenting results from a scoping review. Our second paper, by Diederich looks at access to services by immigrant generation (that being another source of diversity) in Germany. The third paper, by Thiamwong looks at how the COVID crisis affected older Hispanic women. Finally, Ring will examine how a national policy, here the definition of poverty, affects outcome and access for older person in the United States.

DEFINING POVERTY AS AN ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENT FOR SUPPORTIVE SERVICES
Allen Glicksman, 1 and Lauren Ring, 2 1. None, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 2. Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Deciding which individuals qualify as "poor" often depends on how each country or municipality defines the term 'poverty'. In the United States, program eligibility is often tied to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), using 100% of the FPL as a cut-off for receipt of services. However, research has shown that incomes of 200% of the FPL and higher are often needed to establish even minimum levels of economic security. Using data from an omnibus health study conducted in 2018 that included 1,581 persons ages 60+ who were asked about their health and service needs, we compared persons making 100% of the FPL or less to persons making 101%-199% and 200%+, respectively. Results show that poor health status and need for services among persons in the 101%-199% are similar to those with incomes less than 100% FPL, and significantly higher than persons with incomes at 200%+ of the FPL.

ETHNICITY AND RACE IN ACCESS AND USAGE OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE: RESULTS FROM A SCOPING REVIEW
Sandra Torres, Department of Sociology, Uppsala, Uppsala Lan, Sweden Scholarship on ethnicity and old age is at a crossroad now that increased diversity is a given in older populations. The same holds true for the study of the role that ethnicity and race play in access and usage of health and social care in old age. This presentation relies on a scoping review of scholarship published between 1998 and 2020 that brings attention to the ways in which ethnicity & race -as grounds for stratification and disadvantage -are made sense of in this scholarship. The presentation will describe the topics that the review divulged, whether racism has been acknowledged in this scholarship so far, and how this has been the case. In doing so, this presentation will argue that if we are to address the inequalities that older ethnic minorities face we need not only a diversity-astute research agenda but also an injusticeaware one.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN OLDER IMMIGRANTS' HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES USE Freya Diederich, University of Bremen, Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Even though Germany has a mandatory health and long-term care insurance with no or only very low co-payments, immigrants and the native population differ in their health and social services use. Differences in cultural traits and a lack of knowledge about the institutional setting are frequently mentioned as contributing factors. Relying on the epidemiological approach in the economic literature, this empirical study shows that both cultural traits that prevail in older immigrants' country of origin and older immigrants' knowledge about the host country's institutional setting affect their health and social services use in Germany. We distinguish foreign-born immigrants and their descendants as both groups differ in their connection to the home and the host country. The results will be used to discuss immigrants' access and potential barriers to the use of health and social services in comparison to the native population.

HOW THE COVID-19 CRISIS AFFECTED DIVERSE OLDER ADULTS: A MIXED METHODS CASE SERIES Ladda Thiamwong, College of Nursing, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has magnified inevitable physical, mental and social health consequences, especially in Hispanic older adults who experience health disparities and ageism. Even though physical distancing has been adopted as a key strategy to help reduce further spread of COVID-19, prolonged periods of physical distancing may worsen existing health problems. This study aims to explore how the COVID crisis affected diverse older adults. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was utilized. Quantitative data were collected by questionnaires via Qualtrics survey and qualitative data were collected by individual phone interviews with four open-end questions. One in 4 older adults lives alone and one in 20 has no friend to call on. More than half of the participants were afraid of COVID and a fourth of them were afraid of losing their life to COVID. Participants identified keeping themselves busy as key to staying healthy during the pandemic.

ACTIVE AGING FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: NATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF POLICY MAKING IN EUROPE AND CANADA Chair: Francesco Barbabella
Born in Europe as a concept aiming to counteract new demographic and societal challenges, active aging has progressively become a key pillar of an extended welfare state for aging populations in many high-income countries. Needs, interests, and preferences of new aging cohorts are changing, becoming more diverse and requiring a better understanding and greater attention by policy makers, beyond mere social welfare programmes for those with social, economic or health needs. Active aging policies aim at improving individuals' quality of life by optimizing opportunities for health, participation, and security (WHO 2002), hence unlocking the potential of older people as active citizens in the community and the society. Since the focus is on a multidimensional concept of quality of life, active aging works at the intersection of labour, social, educational, family, infrastructure, and many other policy areas. However, there may be gaps and discrepancies between the concept in itself and its application at the policy level. The purpose of this symposium is to present and discuss how different post-industrial societies are advancing and implementing active aging policies, in the context of overarching societal challenges and competing needs. In this respect, the symposium focuses on four countries representing different traditional welfare state models: Canada, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. These four case studies bring analyses of active aging policies at national and/or regional level, providing a picture of how such policies have been designed, how they evolved and what they have achieved in recent years. In recent years, active aging became a concept progressively considered by policy makers in Italy. A national project for creating a multilevel and co-managed coordination of active aging policies was launched in 2019 by the Italian Government and the National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing (IRCCS INRCA). A systematic review of active aging policies was conducted at both national and regional level. Results showed that national policies still reflect the