The Hong Kong Elderly Well-being Survey (HKEWS)

 

The Hong Kong Elderly Well-being Survey (HKEWS) is a territory-wide survey of Hong Kong elderly individuals, led by Prof. Naubahar Sharif from Division of Public Policy at HKUST. It aims to investigate four major issues related to elderly (age 65+) in Hong Kong: diversity, wellbeing, COVID-19 and elderly care.

Diversity: The study will include different ethnicities in Hong Kong. This includes Chinese as well as ethnic minorities including Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani.

Wellbeing: The study will explore the well-being elderly. This includes their health, social networks and social integration in the neighborhood and community.

COVID-19: The study will document how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected elderly in Hong Kong, including types of support they received, and how they view the government’s COVID-19 policies.

Elderly care: The study will investigate the elderly care modes, the relationship between the elderly and their caregivers, and their participation in Government-funded elderly care programs.

This project is funded by the Center for Aging Science at the HKUST.

The study procedures have the approval of the HKUST Human Artefacts Research and Ethics Committee under protocols HREP-2023-0146.

NEWS

The pilot survey was completed in October 2023, and the full launch took place in January 2024.

 

Procedures

For Indian, Pakistani, and Nepalese elderly participants, we will adopt Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) methods to invite them to recommend their friends or relatives to participate in the survey:

  • Upon receiving a referral from your friends or relatives, our enumerators will contact the referral to verify their eligibility and schedule an appointment.
  • Two of our enumerators will visit the eligible respondent in person and conduct our survey interview.
  • During the survey, our enumerators may ask the respondent to recommend your friends or relatives to participate in the survey.
  • Each participant will receive compensation upon completion of their survey interview. A bonus will be received for successful recommendations

For Chinese elderly, we will send invitation letters to selected households: 

  • If you have received an invitation letter and your household includes individual(s) aged  (65+), then you or that individual(s) are eligible to participate in the study.
  • Please scan the QR code on your invitation letter or type the provided link into a web browser on your phone or your computer. This will direct you to a short online questionnaire. Kindly answer the questions and submit. Upon submission, you will receive a confirmation message stating that your response has been recorded. 
  • Alternatively, please register by calling the hotline number printed on the invitation letter. Our enumerators will assist you in completing the online questionnaire over the phone.
  • Our enumerators will contact you to confirm your eligibility and make an appointment.
  • Each participant will receive compensation upon completion of their survey interview.
     

Confidentiality

We promise strict confidentiality. All the information we gather will be used for research purposes only. Your personal information will not appear in any publication. All information will be stored securely.

RESEARCH TEAM

Investigators

1.    Prof. Naubahar Sharif
Acting Head and Professor, Division of Public Policy
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
 

2.    Dr. Wenjin Chen
Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Public Policy
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
 

CONTACT US

For any enquiries, please contact us at
Email: hkews@ust.hk