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The Health of Diverse Californians with Needs for Long-Term Services and Supports

July 31, 2024

Kathryn Kietzman

Lei Chen

Preeti Juturu

Key Takeaways

Adults with disabilities who have needs for long-term services and supports (LTSS) are three times more likely to report fair or poor health and to experience serious psychological distress than the California general adult population.
The psychological well-being of adults with needs for LTSS varies by race and ethnicity.
Access to both LTSS and clinical health care is a potential driver of health and well-being.

The Health of Diverse Californians with Needs for Long-Term Services and Supports presents data on the health and well-being of adults with a disability or with long-time chronic conditions who also have needs for long-term services and supports (LTSS). It compares their health status with that of the general California population. It also looks at how health outcomes vary by race and ethnicity, employment status, unmet needs for LTSS, and access to health care. The data are from the 2019–2020 California Long-Term Services and Supports Study, a follow-on survey of the 2019–2020 California Health Interview Survey.

The findings can inform the development of policies and programs that improve the identification and assessment of need, access to appropriate care, and the allocation of resources to better address the ongoing care needs of people with disabilities, especially for those at greatest risk of experiencing poor health and well-being.

Researchers shared results from the study in an accompanying webinar.

Both the brief and the webinar were produced by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research with CHCF support.

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