MATCHING HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES TO NEEDS IN AN AGEING POPULATION: DEVELOPMENT OF THE SIMPLE SEGMENTATION TOOL
This thesis aims to develop a health and social service (HASS) need based population segmentation tool which assists policy makers responsible for evaluating and developing HASS interventions designed to meet population needs. A systematic review was first conducted to determine if suitable tools exist and can be adopted for use in a Singapore context. As no suitable tools were found from the systematic review, work on developing and validating a novel instrument known as the Simple Segmentation Tool (SST) commenced. Prospective validation studies of the SST demonstrated inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and predictive validity of the instrument for adverse medical outcomes. Normative packages of health and social services for SST defined population segments were then created through group consensus of an expert panel. The SST is therefore ready for use by policy makers interested to assess and segment populations based on HASS needs.
population segmentation, healthcare need, ageing, health services research, consensus, healthcare utilization
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