Aging in place, transportation access and economic insecurity are the top three social barriers to aging well in America, according to a new survey.
The Alignment Health 2024 Social Threats to Aging Well in America survey tackled identifying the primary social and environmental factors preventing older adults from receiving the care and support they need to live healthy lives in their later years. Alignment Health, a Medicare Advantage company, and Ipsos, a market research and polling company, surveyed 2,051 older adults online.
This year’s report looks at eight key social determinants of health — aging in place, lack of transportation and access, economic challenges, lack of support, mental health issues, loneliness, cultural barriers and food insecurity. Last year, lack of support, transportation access and food insecurity were the top social barriers to older adult health cited in the survey.
Aging in place topped the list of social threats to aging well with 69% of more than 2,000 older adult respondents. Among those who said they experienced stress and anxiety in the past year, 22% ranked aging in place as the top reason for those feelings, while 45% ranked aging in place among their top three stressors.
A majority of survey respondents (67%) said they would use benefits that support aging in place — including personal medical alerts, in-home healthcare visits and nonmedical companion care — if their health plan offered them.
Lack of transportation/access to medical care was No. 2 on the list of social threats to aging for 64% of respondents. Among those who skipped medical care, 64% cited the lack of reliable transportation and access as the main reason, and 50% said they may skip future medical appointments due to unreliable transportation.
A majority (71%) of respondents said they would use transportation benefits, such as rides to medical appointments, if offered by their health insurance, while 18% cited these benefits as the most needed or important.
Economic security rounded out the top three social threats to aging for 56% of respondents, who are facing rising housing, healthcare and daily expense costs. And 15% reported economic insecurity as their drop driver of stress or anxiety in the coming year.
Of those facing economic barriers, 44% said they are burdened by medical debt, and 59% of those respondents said they owned the equivalent of one month or more of living expenses.
Lack of support (38%), mental health (33%) and loneliness (30%) ranked as the next most significant social and environmental factors weighing heavily on older adults. One in five older adults also cited cultural barriers (21%) and food insecurity (18%) as barriers to their health and well-being.
“As an industry, we must pay close attention to what our nation’s seniors are telling us are the major roadblocks that impede their health so we can pinpoint solutions that help remove as many of those barriers as we can and ensure they thrive in their later years,” said John Kim, MD, Alignment Health senior vice president of market management and chief medical officer of Alignment Health Plan in California, in a statement. “Our past research has informed the need to accelerate innovative partnerships for our growing member base, such as ones that address food insecurity or benefits that support at-home care.”
Respondents were also asked to forecast what they think will impede, or continue to impede, their health journey in the future. The survey found that 29% of older adults nationwide rank economic instability as their top future concern. Lack of transportation and access to care, along with aging in place, tied for second, with both cited by 25% of respondents. Lack of support was ranked a primary future concern by 11% of survey respondents, making it to the No. 3 future barrier.
