People usually keep using social care from the onset of the disabilities or chronic conditions for their remaining lifetime. Improved understanding of the factors that determine social care needs and utilisation for community-dwelling older adults is of utmost importance to enable more accurate projections of service needs.
We analysed data from 1,029 older adults, aged 75 or above, living in the community (CARE75+ cohort study) and found that:
- Difficulties in cooking, cleaning, transportation, laundry. and managing finances and frailty are powerful in predicting informal care provided by family or friends.
- Health care use, grip strength and living alone are helpful in predicting formal care provided by care professionals.
Our next study will project how much it will cost to meet the social care needs in the next 20 years and will be to understand how many health care resources can be saved if the needs are met in social care
