The application of disability data from epidemiological 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 population have given rise to the need for simple indicators which may be used to estimate service needs and to assess whether resources have been fairly distributed. The present study involved the validation of an 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 regression methods it was found that such an indicator could adequately summarize more complex empirical observations and thus provide a means of classifying elderly populations into four dependency groups.