Dovie Delali Adjoa
Department of Sociology, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
Front Sociol. 2019 Apr 11;4:25. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2019.00025. eCollection 2019.
The paper examines how the healthcare and social care pillars of social policy for aging societies shape inequalities in health and well-being at old age, utilizing qualitative and quantitative datasets. The results intimate the lack of geriatric infrastructure, hence the inadequacy of geriatric care provision for older adults. Systemic problems or gaps existent in Ghana led to private individuals taking advantage of the situation, turning it into an opportunity for service providers. Thus, the evolution of recreational/residential homes in Ghana is situated along three distinct patterns or forms namely the occasional, the adult day care center and residential archetypes. Collectively, these constitute formal and informal care facilities. These are often privately owned and at a cost. The nature of quality of care may be affected by the types of homes available, especially in the globalized cultural setting. A growing number of older adults resort to care homes as an alternative measure. These are discussed from two viewpoints. First, geriatric data generation, the absence of which impedes healthcare provision. Second, cash-for-care policies may exacerbate existing inequalities in care with negative consequences for health and well-being. In short, policies for aging populations are being implemented across Ghana with too little known about their consequences for inequalities in health and well-being in later life. The paper sought to address this knowledge gap by exploring a significant infrastructure by undertaking a systematic examination of how recent policy developments for aging exacerbate or reduce inequalities in health and well-being among older adults. The paper concludes that social policy for aging societies' specific key pillars (healthcare and social care research) offers opportunities for analyzing and understanding internal dynamics including the effects of policy implementation for inequalities in health and well-being at older ages, therefore enabling the identification of strategies to improve older adults' circumstances, without which older adult population will far outpace elder care provision.
本文利用定性和定量数据集，研究了老龄化社会社会政策中的医疗保健和社会护理支柱如何塑造老年人健康和福祉方面的不平等。结果表明老年保健基础设施不足，因此为老年人提供的老年护理也不充分。加纳存在的系统性问题或差距导致私人利用这种情况，将其转变为服务提供者的机会。因此，加纳娱乐/养老院的发展呈现出三种不同的模式或形式，即临时型、成人日托中心型和居住原型。这些共同构成了正式和非正式的护理设施。这些设施通常是私人拥有的，需要付费。护理质量的性质可能会受到现有养老院类型的影响，尤其是在全球化文化背景下。越来越多的老年人求助于养老院作为替代措施。本文从两个角度对这些情况进行了讨论。第一，老年数据的生成，其缺失阻碍了医疗保健的提供。第二，现金换护理政策可能会加剧现有的护理不平等，对健康和福祉产生负面影响。简而言之，加纳正在实施针对老年人口的政策，但对这些政策对晚年健康和福祉不平等的影响知之甚少。本文试图通过探索一个重要的基础设施来填补这一知识空白，即系统地研究老龄化方面的近期政策发展如何加剧或减少老年人健康和福祉方面的不平等。本文的结论是，老龄化社会社会政策的特定关键支柱（医疗保健和社会护理研究）为分析和理解内部动态提供了机会，包括政策实施对老年人健康和福祉不平等的影响，从而能够确定改善老年人状况的策略，否则老年人口将远远超过老年护理的供应。
