Effects Of Changing Care Patterns On The Health Of The Disabled Elderly

Since the beginning of the new century,China has entered a phase of rapid aging.The speed of the aging process of our population is accelerating,and the acceleration of aging will have an impact on the changing demographic situation of our country,and this new demographic situation will in turn have a series of impacts on social development.Among them,the growing importance of the care of the disabled elderly cannot be ignored.Disability—the loss of the ability to perform everyday behaviors including bathing,eating,and dressing alone—is an increasingly common phenomenon among the elderly population.The number of China’s elderly population over the age of 65 stood at 175 million as of the end of 2021,and the National Committee on Aging released in December 2021 that the number of disabled elderly in China has reached 40 million.The current aging situation will have an impact on social and economic development in all aspects,one of which is the increase in demand for elderly care,and the increasing number of disabled elderly people will also bring new challenges and requirements for the construction and development of China’s long-term care system.In this paper,we study how the change in care patterns affects the health of the elderly with disabilities,and measure the health of the elderly with disabilities based on four indicators:depression,self-rated health,cognitive ability and disability.What is the impact of the shift in care on the health status of the elderly with disabilities?The question was analyzed based on the data from the 2014 and 2018 Chinese Elderly Health Influence Tracking Survey(CLHLS),using STATA 14.0 with a double-difference propensity-matched score method.It was found that the change of care mode had a greater impact on the health of the disabled elderly,among which,the change from formal to informal care had a positive impact on the depression level and self-rated health of the disabled elderly,but a negative impact on the cognitive ability and degree of disability of the disabled elderly;the change from informal to formal care had a negative impact on the depression level and self-rated health of the disabled elderly,but a negative impact on the cognitive ability and degree of disability of the disabled elderly The change from informal to formal care had a negative effect on depression and self-rated health,but a positive effect on cognitive ability and disability.Based on the data analysis,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations for the care of the disabled elderly:One is to promote the integration of formal care and informal care;The second is to improve the support for informal care,and the third is to build a multi-level care service security system for the disabled elderly;Fourth,increase financial support for the disabled elderly care policy.