Frequently Asked Questions

The purpose of Search. Find. Help. is to help leaders and staff of organizations serving community-dwelling older adults and their caregivers find resources they can use to support these populations during public health emergencies, including disease outbreaks like COVID-19, natural disasters, and severe weather.

Organization leadership and staff can use tools and program ideas to help them assist the populations they serve. Organizations that provide services to older adults and their caregivers can find and share the educational resources on this site directly with older adults and caregivers. While this site is primarily for community-based organizations, individuals can also search and find resources.

Search. Find. Help. was developed in 2021 as a resource for organizations serving community-dwelling older adults and their caregivers. The CDC Foundation, with technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), funded NORC at the University of Chicago to study the needs and concerns of older adults and their caregivers during public health emergencies. As part of this project, NORC identified over 300 public health resources to support the physical and mental health of community-dwelling older adults and their caregivers during public health emergencies. Findings from this project were also synthesized into a final report (appendices; intervention tables); an executive summary; a caregiver infographic highlighting key findings; and a caregiver one-pager of resources, available in English and Spanish. Get more information about this project.

Resources were identified through an environmental scan, which included an extensive search of publicly available literature to identify interventions, policies, programs, and strategies to support the physical and mental health of community-dwelling older adults and their caregivers during public health emergencies. For older adults, the search focused on five topics of concern: deconditioning (i.e., decrease of physiological adaption to normal conditions); deferral of medical care; elder abuse and neglect; management of chronic conditions; and social isolation. The scan also included targeted searches of websites of government agencies, national organizations, and local organizations that serve older adults and their caregivers.

Search. Find. Help. includes over 40 evidence-based programs. The resource library categorized programs as evidence-based if the body of evidence on the program has been published in a systematic review or meta-analysis. Programs are also classified as evidence-based if they met the requirements of other agencies or organizations—for example, the Administration for Community Living Aging and Disability Evidence-Based Programs and Practices Initiative, the Best Practice Caregiving database, or others. The level of evidence appears as a tag for each resource in the search results. Users can also apply filters to find evidence-based programs. Get more information on evidence-based programs.

Each resource can be filtered based on the user’s interests. The Advanced Options tab shows the full list of filter options for users to select. Filters include: population served, topic, public health emergency, setting, type, format, available languages, and level of evidence (e.g., evidence-based, effective, promising, emerging). Users can narrow their search results by applying filters. For instance, a resource for both older adults and rural communities is tagged as “older adults” and “rural” in the population served filter. 

In addition to filtering, users may search by keyword to find resources. For example, when searching for “dementia” in the search box, any resources with descriptions that use the word “dementia” will appear in the search results even if the word does not appear in the resource title or filters.

Each resource has a summary page with an individual URL. This allows users to share resources with others. Users can also save resources by clicking the save option directly above the resource in the results. Saved resources are included on the “Saved Resources” page, which can also be shared. There is no need to create an account or log in to save resources.

No. Users can access Search. Find. Help. and save resources without an account or log-in.

Helping Communities During Public Health Emergencies: An Action Plan for Organizations is a short guide on how to select, adapt, implement, and evaluate programs to support communities.

This site was last updated on June 18, 2021.