THE APPLICATION OF DISABILITY DATA FROM EPIDEMIOLOGIC SURVEYS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDICATORS OF SERVICE NEEDS FOR DEPENDENT ELDERLY PEOPLE

Increases in the prevalence of disability due to the ageing of the pop ulation have given rise to the need for simple indicators which may be used to estimate service needs and to assess whether resources have b een fairly distributed. The present study involved the validation of a n indicator based on confinement level by reference to epidemiological studies of disability, social support, and living conditions in three regions of France. Using factorial correspondence analysis and regres sion methods it was found that such an indicator could adequately summ arize more complex empirical observations and thus provide a means of classifying elderly populations into four dependency groups. While com parisons of the percentage of persons classified at each level with na tional data suggest that the observations from the three studies may b e reasonably representative of France as a whole, the application of t his indicator to other European countries should be preceded by a prel iminary validation involving regional or national health survey data f or each country. The use of this indicator should also be complemented by individual need assessment procedures.