Trends in the use of home care services among Norwegians 70+ and projections towards 2050: The HUNT study 1995–2017

Background Life expectancy (LE) is increasing worldwide, while there is lack of information on how this affects older individuals' use of formal home care services. Aim We aimed to decompose LE into years with and without home care services and estimate projected number of users towards 2050 in Norway for people 70 years or older. Methods This study is based on a sample of 25,536 participants aged 70 years and older in the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) survey 2 (1995–1997), 3 (2006–2008), or 4 (2017–2019) linked with national data on mortality. Prevalence of home care services was standardised to the Norwegian population by age and sex. The Sullivan method was used to estimate expected years with and without home help services and nursing services for the years 1995, 2006 and 2016. Data from HUNT4 and Statistics Norway were used to estimate projected use of these services between 2020 and 2050. Results During 1995–2017, the use of home help services decreased from 22.6% to 6.2% (p