Socioeconomic Differences and Trends in the Place of Death among Elderly People in China

Abstract

China is facing a dramatic aging of its population. Little is known about the factors that influence the place of death and the trends in the place of death for elderly people in China. The purposes of this study were: (1) to examine the impact of the socioeconomic status (SES) on place of death for elderly Chinese residents; and (2) to assess temporal trends in the place of death over the last 15 years. Data were derived from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) (1998–2012). Place-of-death as an outcome was dichotomized into either death at home or death outside the home. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine the impact of SES on place of death. The results showed that, of the 23,098 deaths during the study period, 87.78% occurred at home. The overall trend in home death has increased since 2005. SES was shown to be an important factor affecting place of death. The elderly with higher SES were more likely to die where health resources were concentrated, i.e., in a hospital or other type of institution. Our finding suggests that the trend towards a greater emphasis on death at home may call for the development of more supportive home care programs in China. Our finding also suggests that the socioeconomic differences in the place of death may be related to the availability of or access to health care services.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to the establishment of the National Hierarchical Medical System (NHMS) among outpatients in Chinese tertiary hospitals

“…Further older adults, who may utilize care more often with increasing age may also serve as targets for outreach. [18] Possible platforms for knowledge dissemination include using emerging media outlets such as WeChat, microblogging, and traditional media such as newspapers simultaneously to spread public awareness and knowledge regarding NHMS.…”

Healthy Ageing and Biomarkers Cohort Study (HABCS): a cohort profile

“…The CLHLS is a community-based longitudinal cohort with the aim of examining factors that promote longevity and quality of life among the older adults. However, we have noticed that the CLHLS study has been limited principally to social science research,3–18 whereas other objective medical aspects such as biomarkers are not available. As a result, such a major obstacle has been preventing us from developing a complete understanding of the determinants of healthy aging.…”

Access to Community Living Infrastructure and Its Impact on the Establishment of Community-Based Day Care Centres for Seniors in Rural China

“…To deal with these missing values, we followed the methods used in Guerriere et al [ 23 ] and Yang et al [ 24 ] wherein observations with missing data were recognized as a single separate category. In our study, continuous variables were reclassified as categorical variables by dividing the data into quartiles, as performed by Cai et al [ 25 ].…”