A cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling older adults in urban China examined what people anticipate needing from assistive and health technologies before they actually adopt them. eHealth literacy and support from adult children emerged as central correlates of anticipated need, with patterns differing between younger and older age groups. Anticipated need, rather than current use, is the stage at which adoption of ageing-in-place technology is won or lost.
Key Points
- eHealth literacy correlates with anticipated gerontechnology needs in older adults
- Adult children's support shapes technology expectations and adoption readiness
- Anticipated needs differ markedly between younger-old and older-old groups
Longevity Analysis
Ageing in place depends less on the sophistication of monitoring and assistive devices than on whether an older adult can interpret the information those devices produce and act on it. Low eHealth literacy functions as interference — data arrives, but signals about sleep, movement, circulation, or medication adherence are misread or ignored, and the technology is abandoned. Family support operates as the practical bridge between a device and sustained daily use, which suggests that the decisive variable in technology-assisted longevity is implementation capacity within the household, not hardware.
Original published by SAGE Research on Aging, by Yuhan Gao, Yajun Song1Department of Sociology, 12465Peking University, Beijing, China2School of Social and Public Administration, 47860East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.