Consumer Concerns of Senior Citizen Center Participants

The greater emphasis being given to the development of education programs and public policy dealing with the consumer problems of the elderly creates a need for systematically assessing the specific problems this group perceives. This paper reports an in‐depth study that identified and compared consumer concerns and educational interests of senior citizen center participants in three age groups (55–64, 65–74, and 75 and over) living in rural and urban areas. The frequency with which participants expressed concern with particular areas differed relatively little between subgroups. Urban participants and younger participants expressed higher levels of concern than did rural or older participants. The areas about which the participants were most frequently interested in learning more were medical services and utilities, although many participants indicated they felt no need for consumer education. Television and newspaper articles were the most preferred media for receiving information.