Analysis of Chinese elderly health policies based on policy tools / 预防医学

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To analyze Chinese elderly health policy documents from 2018 to 2022 based on policy tools, so as to provide insights into improving elderly health policies and promoting healthy aging. @*Methods@#Elderly health policy documents were retrieved from “the magic weapon of Peking University”, the policy document database of the State Council and portal websites of relevant ministries and commissions using keywords “elderly”, “aging” and “elderly health”. The documents were encoded using content analysis and keywords were extracted. A two-dimensional analysis framework was constructed based on Rothwell and Zegveld's classification framework and dimension theory, and the use of policy tools was analyzed. @*Results@#Totally 57 Chinese elderly health policy documents were collected from 2018 to 2022, including 44 notices, 7 opinions, one rule, one regulation, one law, one announcement, one letter and one joint declaration. There were 37 documents (64.91%) issued by National Health Commission and its departments and offices. The high-frequency keywords in the documents included “medical and healthcare institutions”, “elderly health”, “rehabilitation/nursing”, “community/grassroots/rural”, “pilot”, “traditional Chinese medicine”, “propaganda” and “standardization”. There were 413 document codes, and the supply-, environment- and demand-side policy tools accounted for 52.54%, 31.72% and 15.74%, respectively. Public health and medical services (19.61%) and science popularization (7.99%) were the most commonly used supply-side policy tools, law/regulations and administration systems (7.99%) was the most commonly used environment-side policy tools, while pilot/demonstration projects (5.33%) was the most commonly used demand-side policy tools. The external and internal indicators of the system dimensions accounted for 48.18% and 51.82%, and political system (17.19%) and technical system (16.46%) were the two most commonly used external indicators, while service system (35.60%) was the most commonly used internal indicator.@*Conclusions@#Chinese elderly health policies focused on supply-side policies from 2018 to 2022, such as public health and medical services. The use of demand-side policy tools is recommended to be increased and the internal composition of supply- and environment-side policy tools are recommended to be optimized.