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Health and health-care utilisation in old age: the case of older men living alone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2020

Kristian Park Frausing Open the ORCID record for Kristian Park Frausing [Opens in a new window] ,
Michael Smærup ,
Per Lindsø Larsen ,
Kirsten Maibom ,
Knud Juel  and
Karen Pallesgaard Munk
Kristian Park Frausing*
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Health and Welfare Technology, Programme for Research in Aging, VIA University College, Holstebro, Denmark
Michael Smærup
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Health and Welfare Technology, Programme for Research in Aging, VIA University College, Holstebro, Denmark
Per Lindsø Larsen
Affiliation:
Independent, Aarhus, Denmark
Kirsten Maibom
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Health and Welfare Technology, Programme for Research in Aging, VIA University College, Holstebro, Denmark
Knud Juel
Affiliation:
National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Karen Pallesgaard Munk
Affiliation:
Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
*
*Corresponding author. Email: krfh@via.dk
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Abstract

A growing number of older men are living alone. They are often referred to as an at-risk group in health-care systems. The purpose of this article is to establish an overview of these men's health and health-care utilisation. We do so by drawing on three sources: an online survey with health-care professionals, data from a national self-report health study and register-based data on health-care utilisation. The results show that older men living alone generally have lower health scores than older men co-habiting and that, among older men living alone, lower educational level is associated with lower health scores but also a greater use of free-of-charge health-care services. Health-care professionals conducting preventive home visits consider older men's social needs the most pronounced problem for the men's wellbeing and call for new services to be custom made for them. In this article, we discuss differences between older men living in rural and urban areas and between those who are single, divorced or widowed. We conclude that health and social care systems must differentiate between sub-groups of older men living alone when developing new services and that free-of-charge services, such as general practitioners and home care, should be considered as vehicles for addressing health inequities.

Keywords

ageinghealthhealth inequityhealth-care utilisationmen's healthgenderliving alone
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 42 , Issue 6 , June 2022 , pp. 1252 - 1279
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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