ArticleBMJ open2025
Which unmet social care needs have the biggest impact on healthy ageing? An analysis of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
Article in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Trends in informal and formal care utilisation and unmet care needs among older adults in Korea: evidence from repeated national surveys.European journal of ageing · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimUnmet need for social care is linked to numerous adverse health outcomes. Understanding which unmet needs have the biggest impact on healthy ageing could help resource-stretched services prioritise care. To address this evidence gap, our analysis aimed to explore the association between selected individual unmet care needs and an indicator of healthy ageing. DESIGN AND DATA: Cross-sectional analysis of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Wave 9). A total of 6109 people aged 50 years or over, with complete data items, formed the basis for this analysis. MEASURES: Absolute unmet need for help with each: walking 100 yards and climbing one flight of steps (mobility); managing money, managing medication, doing housework and shopping for groceries (instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs)); and dressing, walking across a room, bathing or showering, eating, using the toilet and getting in and out of bed (activities of daily living (ADLs)). Our outcome measure was poor self-rated health .
resultsAssociations between poor self-rated health and most unmet ADL, IADL and mobility needs were not statistically significant. People with an unmet need for support with managing money were nine times more likely to report poor self-rated health than those whose support needs were met in this domain (OR=9.23, 95% CI: 2.12 to 40.23). In a comparison of people with met and unmet needs, individuals with met needs had higher levels of dependency than those with unmet needs.
conclusionsSome unmet needs may be especially consequential for older people's health. However, shortcomings in current data limit a clear and confident assessment of this. Our analysis highlights the importance of data on the level of need to better understand the link between unmet care needs and healthy ageing.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.