Improved Housing Accessibility for Older People in Sweden and Germany: Short Term Costs and Long-Term Gains

Björn Slaug, Carlos Chiatti, Frank Oswald, Roman Kaspar and Steven M. Schmidt
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Björn Slaug: Department of Health Sciences & Centre for Ageing and Supportive Environments (CASE), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Carlos Chiatti: Department of Health Sciences & Centre for Ageing and Supportive Environments (CASE), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Frank Oswald: Interdisciplinary Ageing Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Goethe University, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Roman Kaspar: Cologne Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health, University of Cologne, 50923 Cologne, Germany
Steven M. Schmidt: Department of Health Sciences & Centre for Ageing and Supportive Environments (CASE), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: The physical housing environment is important to facilitate activities of daily living (ADL) for older people. A hindering environment may lead to ADL dependence and thus increase the need for home services, which is individually restricting and a growing societal burden. This study presents simulations of policy changes with regard to housing accessibility that estimates the potential impact specifically on instrumental activities of daily living (I-ADL), usage of home services, and related costs. The models integrate empirical data to test the hypothesis that a policy providing funding to remove the five most severe environmental barriers in the homes of older people who are at risk of developing dependence in I-ADL, can maintain independence and reduce the need for home services. In addition to official statistics from state agencies in Sweden and Germany, we utilized published results from the ENABLE-AGE and other scientific studies to generate the simulations. The simulations predicted that new policies that remove potentially hindering housing features would improve I-ADL performance among older people and reduce the need for home services. Our findings suggest that a policy change can contribute to positive effects with regard to I-ADL independence among older people and to a reduction of societal burden.

Keywords: ageing society; ADL; housing adaptations; environmental barriers; simulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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