The impact of home maintenance and modification services on 'ageing in place'
Summary
Older people who use home maintenance and modification services value them highly. Such services support people to continue to live in their current home for longer. However, Australia lacks a systematic approach to the provision of these services that limits their effectiveness in achieving health, wellbeing and housing outcomes.
Project Number: 20335
Research Theme: Health_Ageing_and_Disability
Project Leader: Jones, Andrew
Funding Year: 2006
Research Centre: Queensland
Research & Policy Bulletin
Issue 118: The role of home maintenance and modification services in achieving health, community care and housing outcomes in later life
Older people who use home maintenance and modification services value them highly. Such services support people to continue to live in their current home for longer. However, Australia lacks a systematic approach to the provision of these services that limits their effectiveness in achieving health, wellbeing and housing outcomes.
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355 KB PDF Document
Description
This research involved a range of research methods, including a review of international literature on HMM; documentation of descriptive information about HMM services in Australia; a series of focus groups held in all states and the ACT involving 92 HMM service providers; and 30 semi-structured consumer interviews conducted in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. The interviews involved older people who had received HMM services during the previous six months.
The key findings of the research are:
- They assist people to maintain their properties when they are no longer able to do this.
- They adapt/modify people’s homes when their capacities or needs change through frailty, increasing disability, cognitive decline, health issues, accidents, or changed circumstances. HMM services play a key role in facilitating discharge-to-home from hospital or rehabilitation of older people.
- However, HMM services can also be viewed, from a housing perspective, more as universal services that enable people to make housing adaptations or transitions that reflect changing circumstances. From this perspective, HMM services can be viewed as one of a series of programs to facilitate housing pathways, focused upon adapting their current environment as an alternative to relocating. The over-riding outcome of HMM services is that they extend the period of time in which people can remain living in their current homes, thus delaying the need to seek alternate housing arrangements.
More Information
Final Report: No. 123: The role of home maintenance and modification services in achieving health, community care and housing outcomes in later life
963 KB PDF Document
Positioning Paper: No. 103: The impact of home maintenance and modification services on health, community care and housing outcomes in later life
623 KB PDF Document
Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 118: The role of home maintenance and modification services in achieving health, community care and housing outcomes in later life
355 KB PDF Document
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