Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Health Management Programs For The Elderly In The National Basic Public Health Services On The Health-Related Quality Of Life Of The Elderly In China

Purpose:To understand the health-related quality of life of elderly people in China,and to evaluate the effectiveness of the health management program for the elderly in basic public health services on the health-related quality of life among elderly people in China and to provide evidence for health policy-makers to design or improve health management strategies for elderly people.Contests:Firstly,the SF-3 6 scale based on CHARLS variables was constructed to measure the health-related quality of life of the elderly,and the reliability and validity of the scale were tested.Secondly,we evaluated the health-related quality of life of the el-derly with different characteristics.Finally,we used the data from CHARLS 2011 and 2015 to study the impact of the health management programs for the elderly in the na-tional basic public health services on the health-related quality of life of the elderly and propose policy recommendations.Methods:The descriptive statistical method is used to introduce the basic characteristics of the sample.T-test,analysis of variance are used to compare the health-related quality of life of the elderly under different demographic characteristics.Propensity score matching was combined with a difference-in-difference(DID)model to remove as much observed heterogeneity as possible and eliminate unobserved fixed effects through within-person comparisons over time as well as the common period and age-ing effects by comparing the trends of treatment and control groups to evaluate the net effect of the health management program for the elderly on the health-related quality of life of the elderly in China.Results:The SF-36 scale based on CHARLS variable has good reliability and validity,and its performance is close to the original SF-36 scale.It is an effective tool for measuring the health-related quality of life of the elderly in China.Elderly people with sociologi-cal characteristics of populations such as cities,eastern regions,men,younger or high-er incomes have relatively better SF-36 scale scores.The health management program for the elderly improved the scale scores of role-physical,bodily pain,and PCS of the treatment group were increased,while the same scores of the control group decreased;the difference attributable to the treatment was statistically significant at the 1%level.The program delayed the decrease of the scale scores of physical functioning(PF),and the difference attributable to the treatment was statistically significant at the 10%lev-el.For the scale scores of vitality,social functioning,role—emotional,mental health and MCS,the difference attributable to the treatment was statistically insignificant.The robustness analysis of the model found that the research results are robust and re-liable.Conclusions:The SF-36 scale based on CHARLS variable has good reliability and validity.It can measure the health-related quality of life of the elderly and lay a foundation for making full use of the CHARLS database to carry out health-related quality of life re-search.The health management program for the elderly in national basic public health services in China has improved the scale scores that representing physical health of the elderly but has had no significant impact on the scale scores representing measuring mental health.