Having trouble working out what your customers think?
The results of Australian Unity’s recent well being survey of older people might just give you some insight.
Here’s how the survey was reported in the DPS Guide to Aged Care:
“Australian Unity used the findings from its annual population-wide wellbeing survey to compare the perceived happiness of residents at its 16 villages with all survey participants aged 65 and over.
The village residents had an average Personal Wellbeing Index score of 80.3, compared to 77.0, among all older respondents.
“One of the interesting points was that the satisfaction with health was significantly lower among our residents than the rest of the population,” said the head of Australian unity’s retirement living division, Derek McMillan.
“Even so, their overall wellbeing was even higher, which means that their satisfaction with other aspects of wellbeing was great enough to offset their diminishing health.”
The study found that older people who lived with a partner and those wh0o had a lot of visitors had a better sense of wellbeing.
Mr McMillan said retirement villages provide their residents with a strong sense of community.
“In village life, people are freed up from a lot of chores like maintenance and so they have more time to interact,” he said.
“Village living facilitates relationships because of the variety of activities on offer – people can do as much or as little as they want. There are also high levels of volunteering among village residents.”
Following the analysis, Australian Unity, plans to increase the level of health screening among its retirement village residents.
“It might be as simple as getting Australian Hearing to bring their bus into the village more frequently,” said Mr McMillan
“It could also mean providing personal coaching sessions led by exercise physicians to help people recover from illness, which we are already doing at one of our villages in Sydney.”
Australian Unity has been measuring its residents’ wellbeing with a comprehensive 64-question survey for four years.
The survey is based on Australian Unity Wellbeing Index which is led by the Australian Centre of Quality of Life at Deakin University.” Think about how you might use this information in your marketing. |
