Study title

Welfare and Services in Finland is a panel survey that combines telephone and face-to-face interviews, postal surveys and register data. The aim of the study is to offer up-to-date, reliable and extensive research data on Finnish welfare and the use of welfare services. This dataset is based on data collected through face-to-face interviews from people aged over 79. Main topics included parents and childhood, housing, economic circumstances, physical and mental health, accessibility and use of health services, need for care and assistance, social networks, and feelings about own life. First, the respondents were asked about their parents' latest occupations, financial circumstances in the childhood home, the respondent's status in employment and occupation before retiring, and age when retired. Relating to current housing, questions charted tenure, number of rooms, floor area, satisfaction with various aspects of the housing, and difficulties with the home. Some questions studied the respondents' economic circumstances, for example, savings and ability to pay for food. They were also asked whether different services were close enough to their home (e.g. grocery shop, bank). Relating to health, questions were asked about health status, exercise habits, alcohol consumption, smoking, limiting long-term illnesses or disabilities and their effects on daily life, and visits to a doctor, nurse or hospital in the previous 12 months. Further questions probed where the respondents would primarily try get a doctor's appointment during daytime, whether they had received sufficient care for health problems, which reasons had potentially hampered receiving treatment, and whether they had had to wait unreasonably long to receive treatment (e.g. to get a doctor's appointment in a health centre). Dental health and visits to a dentist were surveyed as well as prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs and natural remedies used. Need for care and assistance was charted by asking...