We Are All In This Together

Life in a New Normal with a Self-Care Routine: A Cross-Sectional Study of Older Adults’ Daily Health Behaviors (DHB) Performance during the Initial Outbreak of COVID-19 in China

“…Except for the single efforts in health care, the Chinese government is essential in addressing macro-societal factors that adversely affect individuals' mental and physical health. In particular, the low SES and a lack of resources to meet critical needs and expenses contribute to poor self-care [17]. Thus, the government should focus on and improve resource access, such as housing and food support, and access to health care.…”

“…To address future threats, only relying on a single effort from administrators and policymakers is not enough [17]; instead, each individual should take responsibility for their health and well-being [20]. Therefore, to achieve the full potential for health, older Chinese citizens should work with health professionals and the government positively to prevent and manage risks to health, wherever and however they arise.…”

“…In short, the global mobilization to fight the health consequences of COVID-19 has been impressive but more work is needed. As these alarming trends continue, engaging in self-care routines is among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improving health and well-being [16][17][18].…”

“…Given the authorized definition from the World Health Organization (WHO), "selfcare is the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider" [19,20]. In this definition, the scope of self-care includes health promotion, disease prevention and control [17,21]; lifestyle routines for care-dependent persons [22,23]; and rehabilitation, including palliative care [24,25]. However, the current infection controls relied more on preventive behaviors (for example, wearing masks regularly, taking vaccines) [26,27], but the efforts on prompting the lifestyle routines were not enough, especially for older adults who inherently require healthy lifestyle habits.…”