The longevity revolution - implications for the need and costs of health and social services (COCTEL)

The purpose is to produce information about the use and costs of health and social services among older adults in the last two/five years of life and among those who lived longer. The data have been derived from multiple national registers. At present, the data consist of Finnish people who died in 1998-2017 at the age of 70 years or over and their control persons who lived at least two years longer. The project has started in the year 2004. We have applied for new data to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on the use of social and health services for older adults.

COCTEL is part of research conducted at the Centre for Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care.

Goal

Ageing of population brings changes to individual lives as well as to the whole society and to the delivery of different health and social care services. As the number of older people and those who live to very old age increase, morbidity and prevalence of chronic conditions, the need for care and the use of difference health and social care services change. Simultaneously, the field of health and social policy has developed, and will continue to change in the future.

Research questions:

How the proportion of those who used different services, the amount of days in care, individual pathways of care, transitions between care facilities and places of death have changed?
How the relations of long-term care and acute hospital care have changed?
How the roles of publicly and privately provided long-term care have changed?
To what extent the increasing longevity and dementia are associated with the changes in the use of different services?

The project will produce information on how older peoples needs have changed and will change in the future, and how the health and social care system is responding to this request.