Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Performance Outcome Measurement Project (POMP)

POMP logo

 

 

 

Welcome

Welcome to the Performance Outcome Measurement Project (POMP) web pages. This Administration for Community Living (ACL, formerly Administration on Aging) initiative helped State and Area Agencies on Aging assess their own program performance, while assisting AoA to meet both the accountability provisions of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) program assessment requirements.

The POMP website contains all the information and tools necessary to conduct performance-related surveys of Older Americans Act (OAA) service recipients on the state and local level. These tools may also be useful for other social service and support programs.

AoA Performance Measurement Toolkit

The Administration on Aging (AoA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, supported the Performance Outcome Measurement Project (POMP) to develop tools and procedures to measure the impact of programs funded under the Older Americans Act (OAA). POMP was a collaborative effort between AoA and grantees that represented State Units on Aging (SUAs) and Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), with their providers and university research partners across the country.

Instruments
Service Specific Surveys

Service Specific surveys are designed to evaluate service rendered under Title III OAA. The links below will take you to the survey instruments. A brief description of each survey instrument follows the link.

  1. Caregiver Services Survey Instrument — This survey instrument focuses on the amount and type of care provided by the caregiver, the burdens and rewards of caregiving, impact on employment, the health of the caregiver, and information needs.

The Caregiver Services Survey Instrument has a core section and seven optional modules. The core section has 16 questions and covers services received, service quality, and service impact on the caregiver and care recipient. The optional modules cover the following areas: care provided, burdens and rewards of caregiving, impact on employment, health of caregiver, demographics, health and physical functioning of care recipient, and service information and needs.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Case Management Survey Instrument — The survey instrument contains items on the length of time services have been received, consumer assessment of the service, and the ways in which case management has helped the service recipient.

The Case Management Survey Instrument has 20 questions. The items cover the quality of service, the length of time receiving services, and the extent of involvement in decision making about services.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Congregate Meals Survey Instrument — The survey instrument contains items on the length of time service recipients have used the service, the contribution of the congregate meal to daily food intake in total and by food group, consumer assessment of the meal, self-reported outcomes, and food security.

The Congregate Meals Survey Instrument has 51 questions about frequency of program participation, food intake, service quality, self-reported outcomes, nutrition education, and food security.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Home-Delivered Meals Survey Instrument — This survey instrument focuses on the extent of participation in the program, its contribution to service recipients’ total food intake, consumer assessment of the program, self-reported program outcomes, and food security.

The Home-Delivered Meals Survey Instrument has 47 questions about the frequency of program participation, food intake, service quality, self-reported outcomes, and food security.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Transportation Survey Instrument — This survey instrument focuses on the frequency of the use of the service, consumer assessment of the service (including drivers and vehicles) self-reported outcomes, and reasons for using the service (e.g., doctor’s appointments, shopping, etc.).

The Transportation Survey Instrument has 27 questions. The topics covered are frequency of and reason for use, overall experience with service, service quality, self-reported outcomes, and ease of access to transportation.

Mail

Telephone

Cross-Cutting Survey Modules

Cross-Cutting survey modules are considered so because they concentrate on the individual client and not just a particular service. These surveys are specifically designed to collect general information on service recipient characteristics, gauge their perceptions of the care provided, and the level of care needed. Administration of these survey instruments is concurrent with the service specific survey instruments.

Individually these surveys return specific data sets. When interpreted together with the service-specific surveys, they return a more complete picture the impact of services received.

  1. Additional Services Received Module— This module contains items asking the service recipients whether they received any other services.

The Additional Services Received Module has 20 questions. The topics covered are receipt of other services and self-reported outcomes associated with the receipt of these services.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Demographics Module — This module contains items that ask for gender, birth year, level of education, race, ethnicity, marital status, number of persons in the household, and income.

The Demographics Module has 10 questions related to gender, age, race, marital status, and income, and the questions contain the standard wording used in many national surveys.

Mail

Telephone

  1. Physical Functioning and Health Module — This module contains a self-rating of physical health, the use of assistive devices, the number of medications, and overnight stays in a hospital or nursing home.

The Physical Functioning and Health Module has six questions. The topics covered are self-assessment of health, limitations in activities, instrumental activities of daily living, and use of one or more assistive devices (e.g., walker, wheelchair, hearing aid).

Mail

Telephone

  1. Social and Emotional Well-Being Module — This module focuses on the amount of contact with other persons (e.g., friends, neighbors, family), satisfaction with the amount of contact, and the extent to which service recipients feel stress, grief, worry, anger or loneliness.

The Social and Emotional Well-Being Module has seven questions. The topics covered are frequency of contact with other people, frequency of leaving home for social activities, self-assessment of emotional well-being, frequency of negative feelings (e.g., stress, grief, and worry) and their impact on participation in social activities.

Mail

Telephone

Utilities

The sample size calculator is designed to assist users in determining the appropriate sample size given the population of service recipients. This will save users the time necessary to calculate a power analysis. The POMP data entry utilities are designed to assist the users in accurate and efficient data entry. The Toolkit contains a customized database built for each survey instrument. There is no need to code the closed-ended questions on the survey instruments. The data entry utilities have drop down menus with each response option listed with a pre-defined numerical code. This will save users a lot of time, especially when the sample sizes are large.

The website contains suggestions for performing analysis with users’ data. For instance, Chapter 8 of the Toolkit presents examples of how to analyze data. Additionally, Chapter 10 of the Toolkit presents a discussion of comparing data collected on the local level to national datasets, including the Surveys of Older Americans Act Participants. This type of comparison will help you understand how the service recipients in your area assess services compared to a national sample of service recipients.

Sample Size Calculator

POMP utilities include a sample size calculator and custom Access databases for entering survey data. The Sample Size Calculator is a downloadable executable file that assists users in calculating the appropriate sample size for a survey. The Sample Size Calculator contains a help page and instructions for using it are in the Toolkit. Chapter 6 of the Toolkit also contains a help page and instructions for using the Sample Size Calculator.

POMP calculator image

Confidence Level: An indicator of how often the true percentage of the population would pick an answer lying within the confidence interval. For example, 95% confidence level means you can be 95% certain. Most researchers use the 95% confidence level.

Population Size: The exact number of people in the population that you are studying and from which the sample will be drawn.

Margin of Error: Indicates the desired degree of precision attached to an estimate computed from the survey. It indicates the range into which the estimate would fall if the entire population was surveyed. For example, if a 5% margin of error is acceptable to the researcher and the survey estimate of the measured characteristic is 48%, then if the entire population were surveyed, one would expect the true value of the characteristic of interest to lie between 43% and 53%.

Estimated Response Rate: This is an estimate of the percent of the sample that will complete the survey and is usually based on previous experience. For example, 95% response rate assumes that 5% of the people in the sample will not complete the survey because they refused or couldn’t be located or other reasons.

Population Proportion: This is an estimate of the percentage of your sample that will pick a particular response. If most of the respondents will answer in a particular way, for example 90% yes and 10% no, then a smaller sample will suffice, compared to the “worst-case” scenario, where 50% say yes and 50% say no. To ensure an adequate sample size, it is best to assume the worst-case scenario.

Sample Size: This is the number of people out of the entire population of interest that will be selected for the administration of the survey. It is NOT the number of completed surveys to be gathered. Depending on the response rate selected, the sample size estimate includes the number of completed surveys and a percentage of refusals or no contacts.

POMP Sample Size Calculator

Calculator Input Parameters
Confidence Level:












 

.

Data Entry Utilities

These utilities provide easy-to-use tools for converting paper survey responses to computer files for convenient storage and analysis in response to your information management and reporting needs.

Database User's Guide

The Database User’s Guide has step-by-step instructions for downloading and using the data entry applications.

Guidelines for Analyzing Data Using Microsoft Access

Once the survey responses are in computer form, you can conduct a range of analyses, from simple frequencies or cross-tabulations by demographic subgroups, to comparisons with national statistical data on aging that use the same questions and response items as the POMP questionnaires. For some examples of comparative analyses that use national data sets, see Chapter 10 of the POMP Toolkit.

The link below takes users to guidelines for summarizing, grouping, and viewing data using Microsoft Access pivot tables.

Resources

POMP Report

As part of the Administration on Aging's Performance Outcomes Measurement Project (POMP), this report examines the effect of the receipt of Older Americans Act (OAA) services on the potential delay in nursing home placement among OAA service clients age 60 and older. The report is based on analysis of administrative service client data from Rhode Island, Georgia, North Carolina, and New York, as well as respondents to the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal survey of older persons, conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

Reports From POMP Participating States

POMP grantees prepared these reports as part of the project. The studies used the survey instruments and data collection procedures developed under the POMP project.

AoA Research Briefs—Results of the National Surveys of Older Americans Act Participants

Links

Last modified on 07/17/2023


Back to Top