Master Plan for Aging Goal Two: Health Reimagined focuses on access to the services older adults and people with disabilities need to live at home and to optimize their health and quality of life. These services include help with handling routine and personal care needs. Routine needs refer to instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), such as everyday household chores, doing necessary business, shopping, or getting around for other purposes. Personal care needs refer to activities of daily living (ADLs), such as eating, bathing, dressing, or getting around inside your home. Older adults and people with disabilities experience adverse consequences resulting from unmet needs in handling routine and personal care activities. Information about the consequences of unmet needs, and who experiences them, can help inform policy decisions about how to improve access to services for older adults and people with disabilities.

This indicator provides data on the adverse consequences resulting from unmet needs experienced by adults age 18 or older who self-identify as having difficulties with concentrating, remembering, or making decisions; dressing or bathing; and/or doing errands alone. Data on four categories of adverse consequences for those with unmet needs are available: 1) Staying home due to difficulty going out on their own; 2) Going without groceries or personal items due to difficulty shopping on their own; 3) Making a mistake in taking medicines due to difficulty keeping track of them; 4) A combination of two or more of these adverse consequences.

Check out the Health Reimagined Goal Page to explore dynamic visualizations and view more detailed data related to this topic.

To learn more about our data sources and methodologies, please see the Data Dashboard for Aging - About the Data Technical Guide.

• Latest Publications from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
• Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Public Use Data Files: California Health Interview Survey (CHIS)
• Disability Rights California: Self-Advocacy Resources
• National Library of Medicine: Activities of Daily Living
• Cal MediConnect Evaluation Outcome Report(DHCS)
• A Long-Term Outlook: Disability Among California's Seniors (LAO)
• A systematic review and meta-analysis of unmet needs for healthcare and long-term care among older people
• Justice in Aging