Safeguarding health equality for the disadvantaged during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned for the social work profession.

An evaluation of the role played by the social work profession during the outbreak of COVID-19 is necessary. Although social workers have made efforts to address people's needs during the pandemic, it is worth examining the role they have played in safeguarding health equality. Focusing on the case of Hong Kong, we found that the profession was generally ill-prepared for the outbreak, and in particular, for confronting the attendant social inequalities.

Determinants of Patterns of Need for Home and Community-Based Care Services Among Community-Dwelling Older People in Urban China: The Role of Living Arrangement and Filial Piety.

This study aims to identify older people's home- and community-based care (HCBC) service need patterns and explore the role of living arrangement and filial piety in affecting such patterns. A total of 556 older people were selected in Beijing, China. Latent class analysis and multinomial logistic regression were adopted to identify the service need patterns and the influencing factors.

Self-Perceptions of Aging and Control of Life in Late Adulthood: Between-Person and Within-Person Associations.

This study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationship between two central concepts in aging research-self-perceptions of aging (SPA) and perceived control of life (COL). The data came from three measurement points over a 9-year period in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). A random intercepts cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) was estimated.

The Longitudinal Associations between Physical Health and Mental Health among Older Adults.

Objectives: This study examines the lead-lag relationship between physical and mental health among older adults.

Method: Data are collected from 16,417 older adults aged 50 years and older participating in the biannual Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Participants were assessed on up to 11 measurement points over a 21-year period from 1994 to 2014.

An exploration of older Hong Kong residents' willingness to make copayments toward vouchers for community care.

Because of its rapidly aging population, Hong Kong faces great challenges in the provision and financing of long-term care (LTC) and needs to explore sustainable funding mechanisms. However, there is a paucity of research on older people's willingness to pay (WTP) for LTC services in Hong Kong. This study utilizes data collected in Hong Kong in 2011 (N = 536) to investigate older people's receptivity to this financing mode by assessing their co-payments for a community care service voucher scheme and then testing how potential factors affect respondents' amount of co-payment.

Factors associated with older people's long-term care needs: a case study adopting the expanded version of the Anderson Model in China.

Background: Alongside changes in society and the economy, the family's function of taking care of older people is weakening and the formal care mode is becoming more accepted. Older Chinese people are facing diverse choices of long-term care (LTC) modes. Acknowledging this situation, to optimize older people's arrangements for LTC services and improve quality of later life, this study sets out to explore and make theoretical sense of older people's LTC needs and to identify the factors influencing their LTC needs.

An alternative discourse of productive aging: A self-restrained approach in older Chinese people in Hong Kong.

While Western discourses regarding productive aging emphasize individuals' contributions to economic productivity, the Confucian cultural heritage of the Chinese community may provide an alternative perspective. This qualitative study explores interpretations of what constitutes productive aging, based on a series of in-depth interviews with older Chinese people in Hong Kong. It shows that some of these individuals adopted a passive and indirect interpretation of productive aging, distinct from that found in Western countries.

Long-term care policy in Hong Kong: challenges and future directions.

In comparison to residential care services, home and community care services in Hong Kong remain underfunded and underdeveloped. The government's long-term care policies have resulted in an overreliance on subsidized long-term care services in the form of institutional care services. The quality of services offered by private residential care facilities is a cause for concern.