Health States Of Elderly People In China And Its Influencing Factors

Objectives:This thesis was aimed to study the current health states and their changing trends, to explore the main health problems and health-related quality of life and its influencing factors among the elderly (aged 60 and above) in China. Based on the characteristics of elderly people’ health states, this study intended to calculate and predict the trends of health care need among China’s aged population and provide evidence-based reference for policy making on Healthy Aging and health care provision for the aging population in China.Materials and Methods:The data were drawn from the large comparable data in the National Health Services Survey from 1993 to 2013. Descriptive analyses were used to study the characteristics and trends of health states and main health problems of Chinese elderly including the disability rate, the two-week prevalence, the chronic disease prevalence, disease spectrum, and the health-related quality of life with the EQ-5D questionnaire. Binary logistic regression and multivariate regression model were applied to explore the influencing factors of heath problem and health-related quality of life respectively to find the health risks for the elderly people.Results:The number of aged population increased rapidly and population aging advanced faster than before. The health states of elderly people were worse compared to the general population. The disabled elderly people were large in number. From 1993 to 2013, the two-week prevalence increased from 25.0% to 56.9%, and the prevalence of chronic disease ranged from 50.8% to 71.8%. Chronic disease has become the major health issue among Chinese elderly people and chronic disease influence the health-related quality of life. Hypertension, diabetes and Cerebrovascular diseases are the top three chronic diseases for elderly people in China, with the prevalence of hypertension increasing to 334.4%o in 2013 from 68.9%o in 1993 and the prevalence of diabetes increasing from 10.2%o to 80.4%o.Age, gender, economic status, health-related behaviors are the influencing factors related to the prevalence of chronic disease; Health-related quality of life varies significantly among elderly people of different age groups, genders, economic statuses, regions and disability statuses. Chronic diseases cause severe health-related quality of life loss. The number of chronic diseases and the type of chronic disease causes different quality of life loss. After controlling age and gender, rheumatoid arthritis and cerebrovascular diseases caused the most serious quality of life loss.Conclusions:1.The long-term caring system needs to be set up to care for the disabled elderly people in China and the system of providing for the elderly population in China should be improved.2. Based on the predication on the scale of health care need of aging population, it is necessary to set up the basic service system for the elderly to satisfy the increasing health care need of Chinese elderly population. Community health service system should be promoted and the health care for the elderly should be made the priority of it.3. Health for the elderly should focus on health protection of women, aged population and people from lower income groups to fulfill health equality.4. Prevention and control of chronic disease should be started at an early stage targeting all population.5. The management and chronic disease and health management among elderly should be enhanced accordingly.6. Health risk intervention researches for elderly people should be enhanced.