Older European adults and access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In Europe, population ageing poses a challenge. Given accelerating population ageing in Europe, longterm care (LTC) is a growing concern. Unmet healthcare needs varied among European countries during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and greater attention should be paid to ensuring that the healthcare needs of vulnerable populations are met. Notably, developing common and comparable indicators is useful for monitoring the LTC and healthcare of older adults at the national and international levels, and understanding the reasons for the differences in indicators between European countries could shed light on how to improve the health of older adults. As such, in engaging with this challenge, this study uses a compilation of statistics that presents together, for the first time, three types of indicators relating to socioeconomic characteristics for population ageing, long-term care, and access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic among the older adults in Europe (particularly in Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and the Netherlands).