Social and Economic Drivers of Health among Californians Who Need Long-Term Services and Supports

One of the most important drivers of health equity for people living with disabilities or managing chronic conditions is the availability of long-term services and supports (LTSS). Things like personal care and homemaker services, nutrition programs, transportation services), adult day care, and case management services are essential.

Yet according to a new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR), California needs to improve access to these types of support. Both younger and older adults who are living with disabilities or managing chronic were three times more likely to report their health as “fair” or “poor” and to experience serious psychological distress compared with the overall adult population in California.

This problem will only become more acute as California’s population ages, the report states.

On June 24, Kathryn Kietzman, PhD, senior research scientist and director of the Health Equity Program at the UCLA CHPR, and Lei Chen, PhD, project policy analyst at the UCLA CHPR and postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, discussed their new policy brief, which offers one of the first looks at the relationship between unmet needs for LTSS, access to health care, and health and well-being outcomes among California adults of all ages who have LTSS needs.

Researchers shared findings from the study — which uses data collected from the 2019–2020 California Long-Term Services and Supports study, a follow-on survey of the 2019–2020 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).

They also discussed the health and well-being experienced by adults with chronic care needs and disability who live at home and have needs for LTSS, and how these health outcomes vary by race and ethnicity, employment status, unmet needs for LTSS, and access to health care.

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The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) is one of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health policy information for California. UCLA CHPR is home to the California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey in the nation, which interviews more than 20,000 Californians each year on a broad range of health topics.

Established in 1994, UCLA CHPR is based in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and affiliated with the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research improves the public's health by advancing health policy through research, public service, community partnership, and education.