This important book describes a unique new procedure for evaluating how elderly persons living in nursing homes, residential care facilities, and senior apartments are affected by their environments. By reporting results from a comprehensive appraisal of group residential settings throughout the United States, the authors describe ways in which settings for older adults vary in their resident and staff characteristics, physical resources, policies and services, and social climates.

They also show how resources are currently allocated to older people based on their social status and functional abilities, how facility size and ownership affect resource availability, and how setting characteristics may impact residents' lives.

The book will be of particular interest to researchers and practitioners of gerontology, community psychologists, and social service professionals who will find practical suggestions, based on empirical data, for improving existing residential settings and for planning new ones.