jismart2024017: Supply and Demand Gaps of Community-based Elderly Care Facilities in China

Abstract

Community-based facilities and services supply is essential in ensuring older individuals receive the necessary support within their communities. The gaps between the facilities and services supply and demand seriously affect the quality of the elderly’s life. The existing literature is limited regarding the elderly’s needs, especially government documents, and studies that assess the current supply of existing community-based elderly care facilities in China. The study explores the reasons for imbalanced supply and demand between community-based elderly care facilities and services in two case studies in Shanghai’s urban central areas. The aim is to develop effective research methods on the elderly’s needs and provide support for planning strategies and policy development. The elderly’s needs, facilities and services supply were identified through semi-structured interviews with 40 elderly people and two managers and through 400-hour observations. Shanghai’s existing policy gaps were identified via relevant documentary reviews. The triangulation method shows that Shanghai’s future policy and planning guidance formulation for community-based elderly care facilities should be based on clarifying the elderly's needs investigation, focusing on improving the overall supply, marketising promotion of elderly care services in communities and developing skilled and ethical professional elderly care teams.