Study: Health Reports: Unmet home care needs in Canada, November 2018
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Released: 2018-11-21
Home care services are linked to better health and emotional well-being and lower health care costs. The demand for these services is expected to rise with the increasing population of older adults and those with chronic conditions.
An estimated 1.2 million Canadian adults reported having home care needs in the previous year, with one-third of them (433,000) not having their home care needs met. A new study released today in Health Reports uses data from the 2015-2016 Canadian Community Health Survey to describe unmet home care needs.
For this study, home care services were grouped as either home health care services or support services. Home health care services include nursing care, other health care services such as physiotherapy, occupational or speech therapy, or nutritional counselling, and help with medical equipment or supplies. Support services help people with daily tasks such as bathing, meal preparation, housekeeping and transportation.
Adults with a need for support services were more likely to have these needs unmet or partially unmet than adults with a home health care service need. The risk of both types of home care needs being unmet was higher for people with poorer levels of self-rated health and without long-term care insurance. Younger adults aged 18 to 34 were more likely than those age 65 or older to have unmet home care needs, but less likely than those aged 35 to 49.
Adults with three or more chronic conditions were more likely to have unmet support needs than adults with fewer chronic conditions. Whereas overnight hospital stays were associated with greater odds of unmet home health care needs, couples were at lower risk of unmet home care needs overall than were individuals living alone.
For a visual summary of this work, see the infographic "Home care needs in Canada," which is part of Statistics Canada — Infographics.
Note to readers
The data are from the 2015 to 2016 Canadian Community Health Survey, which collects information related to health status, health care utilization and health determinants for the Canadian population aged 12 and older. The analysis pertains to household residents age 18 or older who received home care services in the previous 12 months, and/or identified that home care services were needed and not received.
Home care services are health care and support services provided to people in their own home instead of in the hospital or a long-term care facility. They do not include caregiving provided by family, friends or neighbours. Such services might be needed on a short-term basis, like after a surgery, or on a long-term basis because of a disability, chronic condition or problems associated with aging.
Products
The article "Unmet home care needs in Canada" is now available in the November 2018 online issue of Health Reports, Vol. 29, no. 11 (82-003-X).
The infographic "Home care needs in Canada," which is part of Statistics Canada — Infographics (11-627-M) is also available.
This issue of Health Reports also contains the articles "Health Utilities Index Mark 3 Scores for Major Chronic Conditions: Population Norms for Canada Based on the 2013 and 2014 Canadian Community Health Survey," and "Understanding future needs of Canadian veterans."
Contact information
To enquire about "Unmet home care needs in Canada," contact Heather Gilmour (heather.gilmour@canada.ca), Health Analysis Division.
To enquire about "Health Utilities Index Mark 3 scores for major chronic conditions: Population norms for Canada based on the 2013 and 2014 Canadian Community Health Survey," contact Jason Robert Guertin (jason.guertin@fmed.ulaval.ca), Université Laval, Québec, Québec.
To enquire about "Understanding future needs of Canadian veterans," contact media relations at Veterans Affairs Canada (613-992-7468; vac.media-medias.acc@canada.ca).
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).
For more information about Health Reports, contact Janice Felman (613-799-7746; janice.felman@canada.ca), Health Analysis Division.
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