Mushrooming Population of Geriatric People Driving Healthcare Industry Growth

The healthcare industry is expanding rapidly in the U.K., the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, China, and Singapore. This is mainly credited to the surging prevalence of chronic diseases, soaring adoption of healthcare insurance, burgeoning requirement for in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests, mushrooming population of geriatric people, increasing gross domestic product (GDP) and healthcare expenditure, growing implementation of several government initiatives aimed at enhancing healthcare services, rapid digitization in the healthcare ecosystem, and improving healthcare infrastructure.

The soaring population of geriatric people is one of the major growth drivers of the healthcare industry. This is because geriatric people are highly vulnerable to various chronic diseases such as neurological conditions, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The falling mortality and increasing life expectancy rates are the primary factors driving the growth of the geriatric population. As per the World Bank, the population of people in the age bracket—65 years and above—surged from 30.4 million to 34.2 million from 2012 to 2017 in Japan.

Similarly, the population of these people grew from 11.5 million to 13.2 million from 2012 to 2017 in France. Furthermore, as per the World Population Aging 2020 report published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the population of people aged 65 years or above will rise from 727 million in 2020 to more than 1.5 billion by 2050. In 2019, a study was conducted on people aged 75 years and above in Japan by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP).

This is because health insurance massively reduces the financial burden of healthcare on patients. Moreover, with the emergence of several publicly and privately funded medical insurance policies, healthcare has become affordable for a large number of patients. Additionally, many government organizations have launched several initiatives for boosting the use of health insurance. For example, the Government of Singapore enacted a national catastrophe insurance program called the MediShield Life in November 2015. Under this program, all basic public hospital treatments for its permanent residents and citizens are covered.

Depending on disease type, the healthcare industry is classified into cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), cancer, neuropsychiatric disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes, blood, and endocrine disorders, and chronic liver diseases. Out of these, the cardiovascular and circulatory disease category is predicted to contribute the highest revenue to the German market in 2024. This will be due to the fact that cardiovascular diseases are the most-prevalent chronic ailments in the country.

Hence, it is safe to say that the healthcare industry will exhibit huge expansion in the coming years, primarily because of the rising incidence of chronic diseases, surging population of geriatric people, soaring adoption of health insurance plans, and improving healthcare infrastructure in several countries.

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