Projecting the demand for institutional care by the aged in Singapore in the year 2000

One of the areas of concern in a rapidly ageing population is the anticipated increase in demand for institutional care by the aged. This paper reports a procedure used for projecting such type of demand by the aged population in Singapore for the year 2000. The procedure involves two fundamental processes: estimating the present demand for such services and projecting the demand at some future time-frame (year 2000) using the baseline information and making assumptions about the influence of demographic, health and socio-economic factors altering demand. Estimation of present demand is made using a model that generally classifies aged persons in the population by functional status and residential status. Projection of future demand for institutional care is done using a 3 X 3 matrix of projection models. Three principal models (representing low, medium and high projections) are used to represent varying degrees of expected change in disease load among the aged population. Three sub-models are, in turn, used to fine-tune each principal model to reflect possible changes in the demand for institutional and hospital care within each functional status group.