Health Experiences of Elderly People in an Outer London Area

This paper addresses the use of a combined quantitative and qualitativemethodology to assess the needs of elderly people within an outer London area.The study was in two stages; firstly, a postal survey of people aged 65 and overusing the health profile tool, the Short Form-36 (SF-36), alongside ademographic questionnaire. This was followed by a small number of qualitativeinterviews on a subset of people who scored at the worst end of the SF-36. Theseinterviews followed themes arising from answers to the SF-36 survey.The SF-36 was able to pick up inequalities in health within the elderlypopulation; with increasing age, even amongst the elderly, being an importantfactor in worsening SF-36 scores. Locality also appeared to influence thescoring although this was less conclusive.The qualitative interviews were able to extract more information and greaterunderstanding of the health of the elderly. Whilst the SF-36 could detectproblems on a number of important dimensions such as functional status andwell-being, the qualitative interviews addressed individual experiences ofill-health and other issues, such as environmental factors, which affected thehealth of an individual.The mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies gave a broaderunderstanding of the health experience of elderly people to a greater extentthan either could on its own. It is important for health policy to address theneeds of populations whilst also accommodating individual needs.