scholarly journals Medical Treatment Behaviour of the Elderly Population in Shanghai: Group Features and Influencing Factor Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 4108
Author(s):  
Shangguang Yang ◽  
Danyang Wang ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Mark Wang
Keyword(s):  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
Regional Distribution ◽  
Medical Insurance ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Medical Expenditure ◽  
Medical Resources ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
The Government

Background: While Chinese cities are pursuing economic development, meeting citizen demand for medical treatment has only gradually been put on the agenda. Theoretically, in the second half of a person’s life, demand for medical treatment will rise sharply. Given limited medical resources, the match between demand and supply becomes more difficult. We conducted questionnaires in Shanghai to describe whether there are obvious group differences in the elderly population’s medical treatment options and provide empirical evidence on the determinants. Method: We collected 439 Shanghai Elderly Medical Demand Characteristics Questionnaires, which included five parts: personal information, health status, elderly person’s medical preference and expectation, satisfaction level for hospitals services, and medical insurance. We set up virtual explanatory variables according to the different medical behaviours of the elderly, and control variables composed of individual characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics, medical needs, medical resource availability, and medical expenditure. We used the MLR model to investigate medical treatment behaviour choice. Results: The medical treatment behaviour of the elderly population in Shanghai is affected by multiple factors. When experiencing physical discomfort, most of them choose to go to the hospital (64.69%). Age, income, household registration, and medical insurance reimbursement policy play a role in their decision-making. For general diseases, the proportion choosing specialist hospitals or community clinics is the highest (40.78%). Age, marital status, residential status, physical state, objective distance, medical expenses, and other factors have a significant impact. For severe diseases, they are more inclined (71.07%) to visit general hospitals, with the individual’s physical condition, living status, and accessibility to hospital resources more likely to affect their behaviour. Conclusion: Firstly, the importance of each factor varies depending on the conditions. Secondly, it may be more appropriate for China’s elderly health insurance system to set reimbursement rates based on the patient’s condition and disease type. Thirdly, medical behaviour has a distance friction effect, but the allocation of public service resources shows a strong centripetal concentration. It is necessary for the government to show due care about the regional distribution of the elderly population and to promote the rational distribution of medical resources in Shanghai.

scholarly journals Decoupling of Elderly Healthcare Demand and Expenditure in China

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1346
Author(s):  
Shangguang Yang ◽  
Danyang Wang ◽  
Wenhui Li ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Xi Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Health Condition ◽  
Medical Expenditure ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Healthy Longevity ◽  
The Government ◽  
Elderly Healthcare ◽  
Significant Factors

This study examined the changing trajectory and factors that influenced the health and medical expenditure of the Chinese elderly population over the past two decades. Based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) from 1998 to 2018, inferential and multiple linear regression models were constructed. The key finding is that China has experienced a decoupling of healthcare demand (HCD) and healthcare expenditure (HCE) since around 2014, when HCE began to decline despite the fact that HCD continued to rise. This is a promising sign, suggesting that the government’s health insurance policy is working. Furthermore, participating in health insurance schemes can significantly reduce the elderly’s HCD and HCE, demonstrating that health insurance can effectively affect the elderly’s decision to seek medical treatment and improve their health condition. We also found that age, region, basic old-age insurance, and care by the government and institutions were significant factors that influenced the healthcare demand and expenditure of the elderly population.

scholarly journals Health City and Fair Treatment: Medical Treatment Behaviour of the Elderly Population in Shanghai

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shangguang YANG ◽  
Danyang WANG ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Mark Wang
Keyword(s):  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
Price Demand

Abstract Background: Issues related to the satisfaction of the elderly population towards health and medical services have become an increasing social concern in China, under the influence of individuals, medical institutions and social factors, the structural contradictions of the elderly population’s demand in terms of medical and health services are very prominent. This study seeks to assist in the resolution of issues faced by the elderly when dealing with their medical needs and improve the quality of medical services in megacities in China.Methods: This study analyses the difference in behaviour of the elderly towards medical treatment in Shanghai based on 625 questionnaires. The investigation mainly includes five parts: personal information, health status, elderly person’s medical preference and expectation, satisfaction towards hospitals and medical services, and medical insurance mode and the level of success from use. The study uses Multinomial logistic regression to investigate the influencing factors.Results: To the elderly group in Shanghai, their medical treatment behaviors based on rational choices around price, demand and supply of medical services. The stratification of medical services based on the economic and social characteristics of the elderly population is obvious. Overall, our results show that, firstly, factors such as age, marriage status, relationship, residential location and medical treatment distance have great impacts on the elderly population’s medical treatment choices. Secondly, Chinese elderly people rely heavily on family support. Thirdly, medical treatment behaviour has a distance friction effect: the closer to hospital, the stronger the tendency to choose. Fourthly, Shanghai and other big Chinese cities are in the stage of population suburbanization, but the allocation of public service resources, such as medical, health and education, still presents a strong centripetal agglomeration in space.Conclusions: The study further contributes to public resource distribution and justice between different groups of people in the context of social stratification. while strengthening the reform of medical marketization and improving the efficiency of supply of scarce medical products, the Chinese government should also strengthen the reform of system design and strengthen the total supply and structural balance of geriatric care, especially the weak geriatric products.

scholarly journals Gendered Articulations of Control and Care on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katinka Linnamäki
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Workers ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
System Of Care ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
The Government

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Hungarian Fidesz-KDNP government´s discursive practices of control and care during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper researches the Hungarian government’s communication on the official Hungarian COVID-19 Facebook page during the first wave of the pandemic. Its aim is to answer the question how the Hungarian government articulated control and care to reinforce sedimented gendered division of care work and institutions of control to tackle the potential disruption of the system of care before the widespread vaccination of the elderly population was available in the country. The paper argues that the pandemic has allowed the government to exert control in areas, such as the crisis in the workforce market and health care system, as well as in the destabilized system of care work. The main finding is that in the material the government performs control over care work, whose intensified discussion during the pandemic could lead to a potential disruption within the illiberal logic on two different levels. First, physical care work related to immediate physical needs, like hunger, clothing, pain enacted by female shoppers, female health care workers and female social workers, is newly defined during the pandemic as local, family-bound and a naturally female task. Second, the government articulates care work, either as potentially harmful (for the elderly population and thus indirectly to the government’s familialist politics), or as vulnerable and in need of protection from outside influences (portrayed through the interaction of health care workers and “hospital commanders”). This enables the government to perform full state control over care workers through the mobilization of police and military masculinity and to strengthen and re-naturalize the already existing hierarchies between traditional gender roles from a new perspective during the pandemic. This state of affairs highlights the vulnerability both of the elderly population, on whom its familialism builds, and of the system of informal care work, which builds on the unpaid care work of female citizens, who paradoxically are also articulated as potential harm for the elderly and for the system.

Impact of Mandatory Medical Insurance on Construction Contractors in Saudi Arabia

2010 ◽  
Vol 163-167 ◽  
pp. 4529-4534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah M Alsugair
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Medical Insurance ◽  
Company Performance ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
Medical Facilities ◽  
Comprehensive Development ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

The comprehensive development in Saudi Arabia forced the private sector to bring foreign employees to assist in accomplishing this development. The number of foreign employees reached to six million people according to the late statistics. This huge number of people exerted pressure on the public free medical facilities that forced the government to issue a decree that instructs private sector to use private medical facilities for their foreign employees. The private sector dealt with this decree in different ways according to the perception of the company from providing full medical coverage for their employees to providing nothing. This has created a problem to many foreigners in which they have to pay for their medical needs. The government, then, issued a new decree that is the mandatory medical insurance. This decree requires the private sector to provide full medical coverage for their foreign employees. This decree will have an impact on the construction companies (contractors) and the cost of the construction projects. This paper presents results of a study conducted to identify the impact of the mandatory medical insurance on the construction contractors in Saudi Arabia. The methodology used was to prepare a questionnaire that investigates the objectives of this study and distributes it to the contractors. The questionnaire includes many aspects among them the impact of this decree on the company performance and the competition between contractors; how this extra expense being dealt with; and the impact on the employee. The questionnaires were distributed to 150 construction contractors and 90 questionnaires were collected. Results of the study reveal the impact of the mandatory medical insurance on the construction contractors in general and according to their classifications. In addition, the study presents the current practice implemented by contractors to provide medical care for their foreign employees.

scholarly journals Acceptance and Influencing Factors of Social Virtual Reality in the Urban Elderly

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Shao ◽  
I-Jui Lee
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Influencing Factors ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
The Social ◽  
Perceived Enjoyment

In the stage of aging society and population aging, the social needs of the elderly are widely discussed by researchers. Especially driven by the demand of tele-medical treatment and tele-rehabilitation therapy, it is vital for the elderly to integrate into virtual communities by combining social virtual reality (VR) with different medical services and entertainment needs. In addition, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, it is more difficult for people to have face-to-face contacts. With more remote consultation, entertainment and virtual social connectivity, the application of social VR is more urgent and valuable. However, there is little discussion on the acceptability and influencing factors of social VR among the elderly at present. Therefore, in order to get further data, we used (1) early stage semi-structured interviews and then (2) Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) questionnaires for investigation. One hundred fourteen elderly people aged 60–89 living in the metropolitan area of Taipei were taken as the subjects. To help them understand the situation and state of using social VR, these elderly people were asked to use a head-mounted display (HMD) to experience social VR games. The preliminary results showed that the elderly had obvious preference for entertainment (32.4%) and medical treatment (31.3%). The interview showed that this was related to the physiological condition or medical needs of the age range. In order to further understand how social VR would affect the social life of the elderly, we proposed the further demand structure of UTAUT Model based on the interview of both experts and the elderly. The model structures include (1) Performance Expectancy, (2) Perceived Enjoyment, (3) Social Influence, (4) User Attitude, (5) Behavioral Intention, and so on. These structures were applied to conduct interviews and questionnaires to find out the influence extent and relevance of the elderly on different structural needs, and suggestions were given accordingly. The results of the above interviews showed that (1) the elderly thought that the functions of entertaining and interacting of social VR could increase their social opportunities, and also meet medical needs (teleconference, cognitive decline, etc.), (2) the closeness of social relations (between family members, friends, doctors, and places), and also affect the relevance of Perceived Enjoyment (β = 0.77, p = 0.000 < 0.05). The results of these phenomena and interviews showed the interplay between the demand structures and their special relevance. They also indicated that as to social VR technologies, various demands and functional issues of the elderly need to be considered, and these demands would appear in the subtle usage, and different social VR interfaces and functions would emerge based on their special living ways and physical and psychological demands.

Universal Health Insurance Reform in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Medical Insurance ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Care For The Elderly ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
The Government ◽  
Universal Health

This article uses a refined version of historical institutionalism to critically examine the complex interplay of forces that shape the health insurance reform trajectory in China since the mid-1980s, problems that plague the current multi-layered social medical insurance system and solutions to these problems. It shows that achieving universal health coverage (UHC) requires the government to ensure financing equity between urban and rural insured participants, access to affordable health care and the financial sustainability of medical insurance funds. Facing the challenges of rapidly aging population, the government implements a pilot scheme that integrates medical and nursing care for the elderly and a pilot long-term care insurance scheme for disabled elderly. It is expected that these two pilot schemes can provide better financial protection and quality of medical services for the elderly.

The Status of Elderly People in Nepal

Patan Pragya ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Gokarna Raj Aryal
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
National Development ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Ageing Population ◽  
The Status ◽  
Present Context ◽  
The Government

Elderly citizens are the sources of knowledge, experiences and collections of different ideas in every society or nation. If we use their ability, long experiences and their conscience, our society or nation will be benefitted to reform national development and prosperity. Ageing population is a global phenomenon and the number is rapidly increasing in developing countries as compared to developed countries. The government of Nepal has declared that people with 60 years or more are elderly citizens. The growth rate of the elderly population is faster than that of the total population in Nepal. The observation shows that the proportion of elderly population is high in mountain and hilly regions as compared to Terai. However, it is noted that female elderly population is the highest among three ecological regions. The growing numbers of ageing population is a major concern in most of the developing countries like Nepal. The social, economic and demographic impacts of ageing population possess both opportunities and challenges to every society. In this situation, the Government of Nepal should attempt to enhance the self-reliance and provide social security of its elderly people to facilitate their continuous participation in society. The Government of Nepal has introduced the universal old aged allowances program since 1994/95 as a non-contributing social assistance to elderly citizens with 70 years or more. The starting allowances are nominal. At present context, it is not a sufficient amount for the elderly citizens but they have little support to health care, medicine, entertainment and desired foods and fruits. Likewise, the Government should establish old age homes, day care and ageing centers and parks for entertainment.

scholarly journals The Health Status Transition and Medical Expenditure Evaluation of Elderly Population in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 6907
Author(s):  
Lianjie Wang ◽  
Yao Tang ◽  
Farnaz Roshanmehr ◽  
Xiao Bai ◽  
Farzad Taghizadeh-Hesary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Status ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Severe Disability ◽  
Medical Expenditures ◽  
Medical Expenditure ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Health Transition ◽  
Status Transition

(1) Background: Because of the rapid expansion of the aging population in China, their health status transition and future medical expenditure have received increasing attention. This paper analyzes the health transition of the elderly and how their health transition impacts medical expenditures. At the same time, feasible policy suggestions are provided to respond to the rising medical expenditure and the demand for social care. (2) Methods: The data were obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2011 to 2015 and analyzed using the Markov model and the Two-Part model (TPM) to forecast the size of the elderly population and their medical expenditures for the period 2020–2060. (3) Results: The study indicates that: (1) for the elderly with a mild disability, the probability of their health improvement is high; in contrast, for the elderly with a moderate or severe disability, their health deterioration is almost certain; (2) the frequency of the diagnosis and treatments of the elderly is closely related to their health status and medical expenditure; alternatively, as the health status deteriorates, the intensity of the elderly individuals’ acceptance of their diagnosis and treatment increases, and so does the medical expense; (3) the population of the elderly with mild and moderate disability demonstrates an inverted “U”-shape, which reaches a peak around 2048, whereas the elderly with severe disability show linear growth, being the target group for health care; (4) with the population increase of the elderly who have severe disability, the medical expenditure increases significantly and poses a huge threat to medical service supply. Conclusions: It is necessary to provide classified and targeted health care according to the health status of the elderly. In addition, improving the level of medical insurance, establishing a mechanism for sharing medical expenditure, and adjusting the basic demographic structure are all important policy choices.

scholarly journals Influencing Factors of Understanding COVID-19 Risks and Coping Behaviors among the Elderly Population

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (16) ◽  
pp. 5889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhonggen Sun ◽  
Bingqing Yang ◽  
Ruilian Zhang ◽  
Xin Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Influencing Factors ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Coping Behaviors ◽  
Protective Behaviors ◽  
Elderly Individuals ◽  
The Government ◽  
Level Of Understanding ◽  
And Coping

It is known that the elderly population has weak immune functioning and is a susceptible and high-risk group with respect to the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic. In this study, to understand the influencing factors of COVID-19-related risks and coping behaviors of elderly individuals with respect to COVID-19 and to provide a basis for taking corresponding protective measures, a questionnaire survey was applied to an elderly population. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and linear regression analysis were used to explore the influencing factors of the level of understanding of COVID-19 risks among the elderly population. Additionally, the chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used to explore the influencing factors of the elderly population’s protective behaviors against COVID-19. This study found: (1) The sex, age, and self-care ability of elderly individuals were significantly correlated with their level of understanding of COVID-19, and that those who were female, were of a younger age, or had better self-care ability had higher levels of understanding; (2) The sex, place of residence, and level of understanding of COVID-19 among the elderly individuals were significantly correlated with their protective behaviors, e.g., those who were women, had high levels of understanding, and lived in cities were more likely to have good behaviors; (3) Elderly individuals’ assessments of COVID-19 information provided by the government were significantly correlated with their protective behaviors—those who had a positive evaluation of relevant information provided by the government were more likely to develop protective behavior. The conclusions of this study show that it is crucial to implement COVID-19 prevention and control measures in the elderly population. Society, communities, and families need to increase their concerns about the health and risk awareness of the elderly individuals.

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