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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Exploring the relationships between provision of welfare benefits advice and the health of elderly people
— a longitudinal observational study and discussion of methodological issues | | Author(s) | John Campbell, Rachel Winder, Suzanne H Richards |
| Journal title | Health and Social Care in the Community, vol 15, no 5, September 2007 |
| Pages | pp 454-463 |
| Source | http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/hsc |
| Keywords | Health [elderly] ; Social security benefits ; Advisory services [elderly] ; Social Services Departments ; Living in the community ; Longitudinal surveys ; Methodology. |
| Annotation | Provision of welfare benefits advice to maximise financial benefit uptake is a shared goal for social and health policy in the UK. This paper reports on a longitudinal postal survey in 2002-2003 of community-dwelling people aged 60+ referred for specialist welfare benefits advice within social services and who were followed up after 5 months. Outcome measures include the Short Form 36 (SF-36), the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12) and the Barthel Index (postal version), along with questions about chronic illness. Of 233 people sent questionnaires , 77 (33%) returned a completed baseline questionnaire. Of the 156 who did not, 35 (22%) gave reasons of being 'too unwell' to participate. Between baseline and follow-up, 8 of the 77 respondents died; 52 of the 69 (75%) remaining participants completed follow-up questionnaires. Respondents (mean age 80.3) receiving welfare benefits advice usually reported the presence of a longstanding illness or disability, and the use of healthcare services. Whereas baseline SF-36 scores were extremely low and remained so at follow-up, there were significant improvements in GHQ-12 scores. Significant increases in benefit income were identified in 65% of respondents with complete financial data sets (mean increase £14.73 per week). Participants were very vulnerable in their health status (compared with normative data for older people); this may have contributed to the difficulty in engaging them in the research. There are methodological issues around establishing cause and effect in this type of study which cannot be readily designed on account of ethical issues. Extraction and analysis of financial status and benefit eligibility with a view to determining absolute changes in the material well-being of vulnerable individuals over time is a complex and challenging task. Use of suitable measures is essential. Innovative strategies are necessary to maximise survey response rates in vulnerable older populations. |
| Accession Number | CPA-070913204 A |
| Classmark | CC: JH: IT: PF: K4: 3J: 3D |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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