The Harvard School of Public Health will open a Division of Geriatrics designed to study policies and health programs for the elderly, in late March or early April, Dr. John Rowe, assistant professor of Medicine and a member of the new division's steering committee, said yesterday.

The division, funded by a two-year grant from the Administration on Aging, a branch of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), will study alternatives to long-term health care for the elderly, including the financing, budgeting and organization of such programs.

Dr. Robert L. Haggerty, professor of Public Health and organizer of the new division, said yesterday the division aims at providing additional policy-making material to aid public health officials in helping the elderly. He added it will also train administrators in improving health care services.

"The number of old people in this country is growing and we need to find some better way to serve their needs," Haggerty said.

He added the division plans to develop case studies similar to those of the Harvard Business School for students at the School of Public Health.

"We plan to definitely use as one of our cases a home-care program in East Boston that is being studied as an alternative to a nursing home," Haggerty said. He added the program allows doctors and nurses to visit the homes of the elderly instead of placing the elderly in nursing homes.

Rowe said yesterday the program differs slightly from the clinical gerontology program he presently heads at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.

"Both programs study what can be done to improve the health care of the aged, but the difference is that the gerontology program is concerned with the medical aspects of the elderly, whereas the geriatric division deals with policy," he said.

Haggerty said the division, which will include two or three new staff people and various members of the Faculty of Medicine, will begin as soon as a director can be found.

"We have a list of eligible people who want the job, so we hope the program will get under way in about a month," he added.