Gender Differences in Older Patient Populations: A Case Linkage Study of Community Health, Mental Health, and Social Services in the United Kingdom

We identify gender differences in older health and social care populations by comparing the total population of older people with the total population of women and the total population of older women, respectively. We combine anonymised data across community health (CH; N = 82,751), mental health (MH; N = 19,029), and social care service (SC; N = 19,461) populations in one UK county (N = 496,863) over 3 years. Approximately two thirds of older care populations were female. In both single- and dual-agency care populations a profile emerged of older patients, female patients and older female patients, this profile varied across different diagnostic and care groups.