The Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) provides comprehensive information about the health and functional status of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare managed care organizations. The survey's core instrument contains items for assessing physical and mental health status, activities of daily living, clinical case mix adjustment variables, chronic conditions, and demographic information (National Committee for Quality Assurance, 2000). The data are collected through mail administration of the survey with telephone followup. Results from the HOS will be used to guide quality improvement activity in health plans, improve CMS's ability to monitor health plan performance, and provide comparative information to beneficiaries to use when making health plan choices (Stevic et al., 2000; Cooper et al., 2001). The following figures are based on the responses of 91,314 community-dwelling women age 65 or over enrolled in managed care who participated in the 1999 Medicare HOS Cohort 2 Baseline Survey.Differences in income, education, and health status were noted among the five racial/ethnic groups surveyed (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black/African American, Hispanic/Spanish, non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native). Among community- dwelling women age 65 or over, those individuals with less education and lower incomes are more likely to report fair or poor health, experience a higher burden of chronic illness, and to indicate that they felt depressed or sad much of the time in the past year.Future research should focus on understanding the interrelationships between socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and health, and functional status to identify effective strategies for maximizing health and functional status among all subgroups of older women.