Abstract for: Using population segmentation approach to project future health and social care needs (HASS) among the Elderly in Singapore

Ageing is strongly associated with the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, which adversely affect quality of life. Rapid ageing is expected to increase healthcare demands, inevitably straining the healthcare system. Healthcare needs-based population segmentation is a relatively novel approach with a limited number of approaches available. Population segmentation has been shown to effectively distinguish among groups of patients and highlight the high disease burden of patients with chronic diseases on the healthcare system. In view of the implications that a rapidly ageing population is expected to have on the healthcare system and the need for policymakers to optimise finite resources to improve health outcomes, this research aims to segment the elderly population of Singapore into health states using the Simple Segmentation Tool developed by Duke-NUS and project future healthcare utilisation and cost under two policy scenarios (i.e. improving the transition rate to worse health state and worsening the transition rate from good health states).