Differences in Cumulative Long-Term Care Costs by Community Activities and Employment: A Prospective Follow-Up Study of Older Japanese Adults

Masashige Saito, Naoki Kondo, Jun Aida, Junko Saito, Hisataka Anezaki, Toshiyuki Ojima and Katsunori Kondo
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Masashige Saito: Faculty of Social Welfare, Nihon Fukushi University, Aichi 470-3295, Japan
Naoki Kondo: Department of Social Epidemiology and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine and School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
Jun Aida: Department of Oral Health Promotion, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
Junko Saito: Center for Public Health Science, National Cancer Center Japan, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan
Hisataka Anezaki: National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka 564-8565, Japan
Toshiyuki Ojima: Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Shizuoka 431-3192, Japan
Katsunori Kondo: Center for Preventive Medical Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba 260-0856, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: We evaluated differences in the cumulative benefit costs of public long-term care (LTC) insurance services by employment status and frequency of community activities. A baseline survey was conducted on functionally independent older people from 12 municipalities as a nationwide survey from 2010 to 2011. Employment status was dichotomized, and community activity was assessed based on the frequency of participation in hobbies, sports clubs, or volunteering. We followed the respondents’ LTC service costs over a period of 6 years using public LTC claim records ( n = 46,616). We adopted a classical linear regression analysis and an inverse probability weighting estimation with multiple imputation for missing values. Compared with non-participation in each community activity, the cumulative LTC costs among individuals who participated in hobbies or sports group activities at least twice a week were 1.23 (95% confidence interval: 0.73–1.72) to 1.18 (0.68–1.67) thousand USD lower per person over the 6-year period (28.7% to 30.1% lower, respectively). Similarly, the costs for employed persons were 0.55 (0.20–0.90) to 0.64 (0.29–0.99) thousand USD per person lower than among retirees (14.5% to 16.9% lower). Promoting employment opportunities and frequent participation in community activities among older adults may help reduce future LTC costs by around 20% as a result of extending healthy longevity.

Keywords: public long-term care insurance; cumulative cost; community activities; employment; older adults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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