Researchers at the University of Minnesota have tried to quantify just how much various factors affect the likelihood that people will recognize that they are likely to need long-term care (LTC) services.
See also: LTC community fights for eyes.
Carrie Henning-Smith and Tetyana Shippee have published the article, behind a paywall, in Health Affairs, an academic journal that focuses on health care finance and health care delivery systems.
They used statistical analysis methods — logistic regression models — to tease information out of the 2012 Integrated Health Interview Series results.
Managers added questions about LTC services and supports to the program in 2011, and survey workers ask the LTC questions of all adult participants ages 40 to 65. Henning-Smith and Shippee had detailed survey results for 11,796 people.
By using regression models, the researchers were able to estimate how much various factors, such as living arrangements and educational attainment, affected the likelihood that the participants would say that they expected to need LTC services.
See also: Hawaii seeks long-term services and support awareness proposals.
Other studies have suggested that about 70 percent of older Americans will eventually need some form of formal or informal LTC services, but only about 15 percent of the participants said they thought they were very likely to need long-term care.
To learn what factors affected the likelihood that survey participants would think they were very likely to need long-term care, read on.
5. Has at least a bachelor’s degree: 1.23 times more likely.
One factor that could be useful to agents and brokers selling private long-term care insurance (LTCI) or other financing arrangements that rely at least partly on medical underwriting is education.