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Aging and health in South Dakota: who will provide care?

Article Excerpt
Demographers have long been writing of an aging population. The forthcoming demographic changes predicted include the doubling of the elderly population in selected states between 1995 and 2025 and the possibility that the number of people over age 85 is expected to reach at least 27 million by 2050 (Lanser, 2003). These changes in the population will have a major impact in many sectors of the United States economy, including health care.

The affect on health care will include changes in technology to provide needed services to the elderly, access to medications by the elderly, overall service provision to the elderly by health care organizations, as well as reimbursement for services to the elderly. But the most dramatic affect on health care is still a couple of decades away. "As a result of demographic trends in our country, we will face an insufficient supply of nurses, pharmacists, radiologists, and physicians, to name a few ... the senior population uses health care services at a much higher level than the rest of the population ... " (Lanser, 2003, p. 8). Who will be there to provide care as those members in the working segment of the population age and retire?

Aging Trends

"In 1860, half the population of the United States was under age 20, and most of the population was not expected to live to age 65" (Hobbs and Damon, 1996, p. 2-1). According to the Census 2000 statistics there are 34,991,753 or 12.4% of the American population age 65 years and over (U.S. Census, 2000). "According to the Census Bureau's middle series projects, half the population would be 37 or older in 2010 if levels of fertility, mortality, and net migration follow recent trends ... " (Hobbs and Damon, 1996, p. 2-1).

"In this century, the rate of growth of the elderly population (persons 65 years old and over) has greatly exceeded the growth rate of the population of the country as a whole" (Hobbs, 2001). In 1900 the number of those over the age of 65 years was 3,080,000 or 4.1% of the total population (Administration on Aging). By 1950 those over the age of 65 comprised 8.1% of the total population at 12,269,000 (Administration on Aging). And by 2000, those 65 years of age and and older comprised 12.1% of the U.S. Population (U.S. Census 2000).

"Overall the oldest old are projected to be the fastest growing part of the elderly population into the next century" (Hobbs, 2001). Although many states are experiencing a change in demographics patterns, in South Dakota the aging trend is evident.

By 2025, over one-fifth of all residents in South Dakota will be 65 years old or older. In 2000, 14.3% of South Dakota's total population was 65 years of age and over, which was an...

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