The current study investigated the association between three types of family support and living satisfaction of elderly individuals in China, and paid particular attention to the possible mediating role of the elderly population’s multidimensional health. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2019, and 938 elderly people from seven counties (districts) of China’s Shaanxi province were enrolled. Multivariable linear regression and mediation effect analysis were employed to examine the integrated relationships among these variables. The results showed that emotional support and decisional support from families were positively related to the living satisfaction of elderly individuals (β = 0.101, p = 0.000; β = 0.263, p = 0.000), while the relationship between daily living support and living satisfaction was not significant (β = 0.017, p > 0.05). The mediation examination further demonstrated that both mental state and social integration mediated the association between emotional support and living satisfaction, as well as the association between decisional support and living satisfaction, but a mediating effect of physical health was not observed. These results indicate the pathways in the relationships of different types of family support to living satisfaction via mental state and social integration, having significant implications for enhancing the living satisfaction the elderly.

Background: While community care services have been developing rapidly as a new way to meet the growing demands of elderly individuals in China, their health benefits are virtually unknown. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the Chinese elderly individuals’ utilisation of community care services and its association with the mental health with comparing rural-urban and gender differences. Methods: For this 2019 cross-sectional study, 687 elderly people from 7 counties (districts) of China’s Shaanxi province were enrolled. Respondents’ mental health level was assessed using a self-reported mental health measure. Four categories of community care services utilisation were examined: daily care services, medical care services, social and recreational services and spiritual comfort services. The binary logistic regression model was used in examining the association between community care services utilisation and mental health. Results: Our results showed that there was a noted difference in mental health level between the male and female groups. Utilisation of medical care services and social and recreational services was significantly higher in the rural group than that in the urban group. Regression analysis showed that utilisation of daily care services (β = 0.809, p = 0.008) and social and recreational service (β = 0.526, p = 0.035) was significantly and positively associated with elderly individuals’ mental health level. Specifically, daily care services utilisation predicted a better mental health of the rural elderly (β = 1.051, p = 0.036) and the male elderly (β = 1.133, p = 0.053), while social and recreational services utilisation predicted a better mental health of the urban elderly (β = 0.927, p = 0.008) and the female elderly (β = 0.864, p = 0.007). Conclusions: Our findings indicated varied levels of community care services utilisation and mental health are common among the elderly people in China. Community care services utilisation has a positive, albeit selective, association with elderly individuals’ mental health. Further policies should strengthen the equitable development of high-quality community care services in urban and rural areas to improve the mental health of elderly individuals, and focus more on gender differences in terms of community care services needs.

Background: Elderly care and elderly health are the enormous challenges in such an aging society as China. Community care services have been developing rapidly in recent years in China as an increasingly mainstream care resource to promote elderly health. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between using community care services and self-rated health among Chinese elderly.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2019 and 612 elderly people from China’s Shaanxi province were enrolled. The binary logistic regression was first employed to explore the association between community care services utilisation and elderly health. Given the potential selection bias issue, the propensity score matching method was hired to generate comparable samples between participants who used these services and participants who didn’t, and further examine the health benefits of using four types of services.Results: The results of the binary logistic regression showed that the use of community care services predicted a better health status of elderly individuals. Overall, the results of the propensity score matching method showed the similar results. Specifically, with the nearest neighbors matching algorithm, using daily care services was significantly associated with a 0.246 increase in the self-rated health of the elderly (T = 1.83). For medical care services, the mean of self-rated health of elderly individuals who used these services was 3.542, significantly higher than those who didn’t (T = 2.15). For spiritual comfort services, elderly individuals using these services showed a significant increase by 0.280 in the self-rated health (T = 1.82). For social and recreational services, the result of the nearest neighbor matching method was not statistically significant, while the results of kernel matching method and the mahalanobis matching method showed a significant increase in the self-rated health among elderly individuals using these services (T = 2.03, T = 2.03, respectively). All the estimated results passed the Rosenbaum bounds analysis and were not sensitive to hidden bias.Conclusions: Using community care services improved the self-rated health of the elderly. More effective measures may be implemented to increase access to care resources for senior citizens, and further improve their health status.

Objective: China’s targeted poverty alleviation policy has a profound impact on the country’s rural economic and social development now. This study aimed to learn about the health status and health equity of rural poor residents under the implementation of the policy. It further explores the factors affecting the health status and health equity of rural poor residents in order to contribute to the improvement of the policy. Methods: The data of 1233 rural poor residents were collected from a questionnaire survey from 12 prefecture-level cities and areas of Shaanxi province in 2017, and the self-reported health was used to reflect the health status. A concentration index was applied to measure the inequity of the health status of rural poor residents. The decomposition method was employed to explore the source of health inequity. Results: The results showed that 44.56% of rural poor residents in Shaanxi province had a poor or very poor health status, which was affected by their economic level, gender, age, degree of education, and marital status. Additionally, participation in agricultural industry development, relocation, health poverty alleviation, and basic living standards were significantly correlated with health status. The concentration index of the health status of rural poor residents was 0.0327. The primary contributors to the health inequity in different regions varied, but the economic level and the degree of education were the most significant factors, and the targeted poverty alleviation policy had a significant impact on health equity. Conclusions: The results indicated that the health status of rural poor residents in Shaanxi province was generally poor, there was a pro-rich inequity in the health status, and the degree of education and economic level were the primary factors affecting the health status and health equity. The targeted poverty alleviation policy greatly impacted the health status and health equity of rural poor residents, and the difference in health status would lead to the inequity of benefits of the targeted poverty alleviation policy. In the future, the policy should focus on ensuring the sustainable development ability of rural residents with poor health status.

There is little research on the utilization of non-medical community healthcare services among the elderly, compared with that of medical community healthcare services. From the perspective of both supply and demand, based on the survey data from Shaanxi province, this study examined supply-related factors (including service supply, service quality, service charge and service accessibility) and demand-related factors (including service need, individual financial status, family care support and knowledge of service) affecting the utilization of non-medical community healthcare services among the elderly in China by using Poisson regression. The findings show that service supply, service quality, service need and knowledge of service are positively associated with the utilization of non-medical community healthcare services among elderly Chinese, but the other factors identified in previous studies are not significant predictors for the utilization of the services among the elderly in the context of China. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine both supply-related factors and demand-related factors affecting the utilization of non-medical community healthcare services among elderly Chinese.

With the rapid increase of the elderly population in China, healthcare services for the elderly have gradually become an important welfare resource. However, the healthcare service for the elderly still has problems such as mismatched supply and demand and unbalanced resources. In order to effectively eliminate the path barriers to match supply and demand, and improve the accessibility of healthcare services, this paper introduces the sustainability of the healthcare service based on the accessibility theory, and constructs an index system from the three dimensions of potential accessibility, realized accessibility, and sustainable accessibility of healthcare services for the elderly. Then, the paper makes a practice application of the index system based on survey data of healthcare services from Shaanxi province, China. Finally, the paper finds that the total accessibility and sustainable accessibility of healthcare services for the elderly in Shaanxi Province are at an average level. The score of potential accessibility is high, indicating that elderly people have greater opportunities to use healthcare services. The realized accessibility score is low, which indicates that the actual use of healthcare services for the elderly presents low satisfaction.