Congress (and evaluators) ought to pay more attention to history
- 1 February 1979
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Wiley in American Journal of Community Psychology
- Vol. 7 (1) , 1-17
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00893159
Abstract
In 1935, in 1965, and in 1972, the original Social Security Act and amendments to it were used by states to deinstitutionalize. In each instance a private, profit-making nursing home and board and care industry was stimulated. Poor care in such facilities was an unintended consequence of the legislation. Neither the Congress nor evaluators have clear concepts of what constitutes a life of decency and dignity for the chronically dependent. Behaviorally oriented social scientists and legislators have in common the difficulty of dealing with soft variables such as decency and dignity. In the absence of clear goals, care drifts below a lower threshold of acceptability and is corrected to some extent following public scandal. Social scientists need to learn to develop concepts and measurements suitable to monitoring the implementation of humane ideals.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
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- Too Old, Too Sick, Too BadHealth Care Management Review, 1977
- We Use Our Living HeritageChildhood Education, 1950
- Problems of an Aging PopulationAmerican Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 1947