History

The National Core Indicators-Aging and Disabilities (NCI-AD) project grew out of state aging and disabilities agencies’ desire for quantifiable data on the performance of their publicly funded programs for older adult and individuals with physical disabilities.   Such data have been available for states’ intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) service systems through the National Core Indicators (NCI) project, managed by the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS) and Human Services Research Institute (HSRI), for the past 20 years.  NCI-AD is designed to assess the performance of states' publicly funded programs for older adults and people with physical disabilities by collecting, analyzing and reporting valid and reliable data on service participants’ quality of life and outcomes.

Beginning in 2012, ADvancing States (then known as the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, NASUAD) has been working in collaboration with Human Services Research Institute (HSRI) to develop and subsequently implement and manage NCI-AD Adult Consumer Survey in participating States.

ADvancing States’ Board of Directors voted to begin work on the NCI-AD project in late 2012.  In June 2013, ADvancing States and HSRI, with help from the NCI-AD steering committee (comprised of ADvancing States board members), began developing indicators that would align with the priorities of aging and disability service users and systems and drafting Survey questions.  By the end of 2013, the initial survey draft underwent seven revisions based on feedback gathered from the steering committee, stakeholder groups, national-level partners, subject-matter experts, focus groups comprised of older adults and individuals with physical disabilities being served by their state systems, as well as results of a pre-pilot test with service participants in Maine.  

In early 2014, Georgia, Minnesota, and Ohio piloted the NCI-AD Adult Consumer Survey.  By the end of August 2014, all three states finished collecting their pilot data.  Project team compiled data from the three pilot states in the NCI-AD Final Pilot Results report.

ADvancing States, HSRI, and the NCI-AD Steering Committee worked with stakeholders to further revise the Survey based on the pilot experience.  In January 2015, the project team conducted another sample pilot of the revised survey with participants in Georgia.  The Survey was then revised once again and finalized in March 2015. 

First year of regular data collection began in June 2015.

Development of the NCI-AD tool was supported by ADvancing States members and, in part, the Administration for Community Living (ACL).