Research on the early phases of community-based long-term care systems in Asia

BACKGROUND

The Western Pacific Region has one of the largest and fastest growing older population in the world. Globally, there are over 700 million people aged 65 and over, with more than 240 million of them living in the Western Pacific Region. This number is expected to double by 2050. The pace of demographic change is also accelerating as many younger countries are experiencing population ageing at a much faster rate than already-aged countries.

The phenomenon of ageing is necessarily creating the demand for long-term care. Hayashi (2019)[1] presents the present status and future trend of demand[2] and supply[3] of long-term care for older persons in Asia, notably in East and Southeast Asia[4]: in 2015, 8.7 million older persons in East and Southeast Asia needed care. This number would nearly double in 2030, and triple in 2045.

The care need might be difficult to be met by only family members, incurring need for formal care including facility utilization; former socialist countries such as China or Viet Nam have collective dwelling as a norm of living arrangement, so facility-based living might be accepted easily (Hayashi, 2019). Nevertheless, utilization of long-term care facilities considering care need in many countries are quite low[5]: 14% in Malaysia, 11% in Vietnam. 12% in Mongolia, 1.4% in Philippines, etc. Considering the utilization levels of formal LTC services in aged countries such as 98% in Japan and 96% in Republic of Korea [6] according to Hayashi(2019), it seems necessary to build up the proper capacity of long-term care system across the region, particularly in countries facing limited popularity or availability for institutional LTC and prospect of accelerating ageing.

Against this background, it seems helpful for the countries, which will be in need for the more capacity of long-term care in the future, to have knowledge about the early experiences of countries which have already established long-term care systems, particularly community-based ones as exemplified in several countries[7][8].

PURPOSE/SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF THE ACTIVITY

To investigate and better understand the long-term care system, with balanced focus on facility-based and community-based care, if any, particularly the early phases of development countries and summarize the experiences utilizing the relevant frameworks of long-term care in order to provide insights for countries which are preparing to respond to increasing care need for older people.

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES TO BE CARRIED OUT

Activity: Perform qualitative analysis on below two major research questions. 

Q1. How could we understand aged countries’ long-term care systems - particularly the early stages - within the priorly set framework?

Q2. What implications does the analysis provide for the relatively younger countries - particularly low-resourced settings in Asia-Pacific in terms of establishing community-based long-term care system?

*Conceptual framework for long-term care systems for analysis will be provided and research questions can be expanded, amended, and composed of sub-questions subject to the agreement with WHO.

Output 1: Interim reports of the study results to WHO

Output 2: Final report of the study results to WHO

METHODS TO CARRY OUT THE ACTIVITY

• Comprehensive literature review
• Qualitative analysis – case study, comparative study, etc. - to answer the research questions from Activity 2

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

A contracting individual or institution should have the qualification and/or experience in medicine, public health, health science, or a related field and be able to present target countries for this project.

EXPERIENCE

Experience in analysing community-based long-term care systems, preferably in countries in Asia-Pacific.

TECHNICAL SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE

Demonstrated knowledge and expertise in public health practice and health policy development including health or long-term care system are essential, together with excellent qualitative research capacity and language skills required for performing this project.

LANGUAGES

Primarily, fluent in written and spoken English

Secondly, fluent in written and spoken language for the target countries where the literature in English is limited for desired level of research output.

COMPETENCIES

• • Communicating in a credible and effective way
• • Producing results
• • Fostering integration and teamwork

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• The contractual partner can work remotely from its country of origin.
• One of specialists from WHO will coordinate the research process.
• Duration of contract is for 2 months (February 2021 – March 2021)

APPLICATIONS

Qualified and interested specialists should submit their Company Profile {for institutional applications}, cost proposal and Expression of Interest {cover letter} to the Supply Officer through WP RO UNGM at < wproungm@who.int > by 1 February 2021. 

The cover letter should outline how their experience and qualifications make them a suitable candidate for this position and should include their proposed daily consultancy fee and availability.

Please use Tender Notice No. 120823 as subject to all submission. Only successful candidates will be contacted.