Health disparities have become a major social issue in Japan. To reduce health disparities, it is necessary to shift from individual-level to societal-level interventions. Since 2021, health management support programs for public assistance recipients have been mandated in welfare offices. Therefore, the present study focused on older public assistance recipients who particularly need health and daily life support, and aimed to understand the daily life needs of subgroups of older public assistance recipients. In 2021, we conducted interviews with four caseworkers from the welfare offices in two municipalities. The results of our previous quantitative study, which identified five subgroups of older public assistance recipients by sex, were presented to caseworkers. They were asked about their daily life needs in each subgroup. The interview results revealed the following five daily life needs among the subgroups of older public assistance recipients: (1) housing, (2) financial,(3) welfare service utilization, (4) medical, and (5) no specific daily life needs. These findings indicate that appropriate support interventions are necessary for each subgroup of older public assistance recipients. Future studies are warranted to conduct interviews with professionals from other fields (such as public health nurses and social workers) to further understand the daily life needs of the subgroups of older public assistance recipients.
These findings were published online in Global Health & Medicine on July 14, 2024.
