This is the second round of the Community Partnerships for Older Adults (CPFOA) Program Survey of Older Adults. Like the first round, which was fielded in 2002 and released as ICPSR 4301 (Community Partnerships for Older Adults (CPOA) Program Survey of Older Adults, 2002), the second round was conducted as part of the evaluation of the CPFOA Program, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) aimed at promoting improvements in the organization and delivery of long-term care and supportive services for older adults through local public-private partnerships. The 2002 survey was conducted in the 13 communities in which partnerships received development grants from RWJF, and, in 2008, the survey was repeated in the eight of them in which partnerships received implementation grants from the Foundation. The goal of the survey was to improve understanding of the characteristics of older adults, their knowledge and perceptions about issues related to long-term care, and their use of long-term care services and support. In addition, the data collected by the survey enabled the communities to target the partnership's activities in the most effective way.

The second round was based on the 2002 survey instrument. Changes to the instrument were minimized so that the data from the 2002 and 2008 rounds would be comparable. The instrument was modified to delete questions that had low item response in 2002, to add questions requested by the partnerships, to add questions for decision-makers, or to modify questions that were outdated. As in 2002, the 2008 survey interviewed respondents about supportive and long-term care services for older adults in their communities, including the availability, use of, and quality of the services and sources of information about them. Respondents were asked if they expected to stay in their community, if their homes needed repairs or modifications to improve their ability to live in them, how important it was to be able to live in their own home as they grew older, the age at which they thought they would need help to continue living in their own home, and the age at which they thought they could no longer live at home because of health problems. The survey also collected information on health status, problems with activities of everyday life, health insurance coverage and long-term care insurance, hospital stays, living arrangements, social activities, support from family and friends, access to transportation, and demographic characteristics.