One of the most important drivers of health equity for people living with disabilities or managing chronic conditions is the availability of long-term services and supports (LTSS). Things like personal care and homemaker services, nutrition programs, transportation services), adult day care, and case management services are essential.
Yet according to a new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, California needs to improve access to these types of support. Both younger and older adults who are living with disabilities or managing chronic were three times more likely to report their health as “fair” or “poor” and to experience serious psychological distress compared with the overall adult population in California.
This problem will only become more acute as California’s population ages, the report states.
Join us as UCLA CHPR researchers Kathryn Kietzman and Lei Chen discuss their new policy brief, which offers one of the first looks at the relationship between unmet needs for LTSS, access to health care, and health and well-being outcomes among California adults of all ages who have LTSS needs.
Researchers will share findings from the study — which uses data collected from the 2019–2020 California Long-Term Services and Supports study, a follow-on survey of the 2019–2020 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).
They’ll discuss the health and well-being experienced by adults with chronic care needs and disability who live at home and have needs for LTSS, and how these health outcomes vary by race and ethnicity, employment status, unmet needs for LTSS, and access to health care.
