Seniors' Health and Health Care

Seniors’ Health and Health Care

In 2008, 39.1% of older persons living at home assessed their heath as excellent or very good (compared to 60.7% for all persons aged 18 and older). African-Americans, older American Indians/Alaska Natives and older Hispanics were less likely to rate their health as excellent or very good (25.1%, 23.2% and 28.0% respectively) compared to 41.8% for older Whites or 35.2% of older Asians.

Most older persons have at least one chronic condition and many have multiple conditions. Among the most frequently occurring conditions older persons reported in 2005-2007 were:

hypertension (41%),

diagnosed arthritis (49%),

all types of heart disease (31%),

any cancer (22%),

diabetes (18%), and

sinusitis (15%).

Almost 67% reported that they received an influenza vaccination during the past 12 months and 60% reported that they had ever received a pneumococcal vaccination in 2008.

About 27% (of persons 60+) report height/weight combinations that place them among the obese.

Almost 26% of persons aged 65-74 and 19% of persons 75+ report that they engage in regular leisure-time physical activity.

Only 9% reported that they are current smokers and only 5% reported excessive alcohol consumption. Only 2% reported that they had experienced psychological distress during the past 30 days.

Older persons averaged more office visits with doctors in 2005: 6.5 office visits for those aged 65-74 and 7.7 office visits for persons over 75 while persons aged 45-65 averaged only 3.9 office visits during that year.

In 2008, over 96% of older persons reported that they did have a usual place to go for medical care and only 2.4% said that they failed to obtain needed medical care during the previous 12 months due to financial barriers.

In 2008 older consumers averaged out-of-pocket health care expenditures of $4,605, an increase of 57% since 1998. In contrast, the total population spent considerably less, averaging $2,976 in out-of-pocket costs.

Older Americans spent 12.5% of their total expenditures on health, more than twice the proportion spent by all consumers (5.9%). Health costs incurred on average by older consumers in 2008 consisted of $2,844 (62%) for insurance, $793 (17%) for medical services, $821 (18%) for drugs, and $145 (3%) for medical supplies.

(Sources:  National Center for Health Statistics and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)