Articles

The Future of Long-Term Care in Kenya: From Family Responsibility to a Sustainable Care System

Kenya’s long-term care system is entering a formative period as population ageing, changing family structures, health reform and the National Care Policy bring care more clearly into public policy. The...

Integrating Health, Social Protection and Long-Term Care in Kenya: Building More Connected Pathways

Older Kenyans often move between healthcare, family support, social protection and community services without those systems operating as one pathway. Kenya’s primary healthcare reforms, Social Health Authority, community health infrastructure...

Measuring Quality and Outcomes in Kenyan Long-Term Care: What Should Good Support Look Like?

As Kenya develops more formal long-term-care services, quality cannot be defined simply by whether support is available or whether prescribed tasks are completed. Good care must also protect dignity, maintain...

Data and Evidence for Ageing in Kenya: Building Better Intelligence for Long-Term Care Planning

Kenya has increasingly strong demographic, health, disability, social protection and community-level data, but these sources do not yet provide a complete picture of long-term-care need. As the older population grows,...

Digital Technology and Long-Term Care in Kenya: Opportunities, Exclusion Risks and Responsible Adoption

Kenya’s expanding digital health infrastructure creates important possibilities for supporting older people, families and emerging long-term-care services. Yet digital records, remote support, assistive technology and data-driven systems will improve care...

Housing and Ageing in Kenya: Can Communities Support People to Remain at Home for Longer?

For many older Kenyans, remaining at home depends not only on health or family support but on whether housing and neighbourhoods remain usable as mobility, strength and care needs change....

Nutrition, Frailty and Falls in Kenya: Strengthening Prevention in Later Life

Poor nutrition, declining strength and falls can reinforce one another as people age, turning manageable changes into loss of independence, hospital admission and greater reliance on family care. In Kenya,...

Older People with Multiple Long-Term Conditions in Kenya: The Case for More Integrated Care

Many older Kenyans live not with one condition but with combinations of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, disability, frailty and other long-term needs. Managing each problem separately can create...

Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Older People in Kenya: Connecting Health, Family and Community Support

Palliative care is becoming more visible within Kenya’s health system, including through social health insurance and national approaches to cancer and chronic disease. For older people, however, good end-of-life support...

Ageing with Disability in Kenya: Bridging Disability Support and Older People’s Care

Older Kenyans with disabilities can encounter two systems at once: disability policy focused on rights, accessibility and participation, and an ageing agenda increasingly concerned with care, health and family support....

Dementia Care in Kenya: Building Awareness, Diagnosis and Community Support

Dementia is becoming more important within Kenya’s ageing agenda, yet many people experiencing cognitive change still reach support through families and communities rather than a clearly defined dementia pathway. This...

Healthy Ageing in Kenya: Can Prevention Delay or Reduce the Need for Long-Term Care?

Healthy ageing is not about preventing every illness or eliminating the need for long-term care. It is about maintaining functional ability for as long as possible and intervening earlier when...

Person-Centred Long-Term Care in Kenya: Moving from Basic Provision to Choice, Dignity and Control

As Kenya develops its long-term-care system, the quality of support will depend on more than whether services are available. Older people also need meaningful influence over how, where and by...

Safeguarding Older People in Kenya: Preventing Abuse, Neglect and Financial Exploitation

Safeguarding older people in Kenya requires more than responding after serious abuse has occurred. As family care, community support, residential services and paid home care evolve, Kenya needs stronger ways...

Care Worker Recruitment and Retention in Kenya: Building a Sustainable Workforce

Kenya can expand long-term care only if organisations and communities can attract capable care workers and keep them long enough to build experience, trust and continuity. This article examines recruitment...

Building Kenya’s Long-Term Care Workforce: Skills, Recognition and Professionalisation

Kenya’s growing need for long-term support will depend not only on financing and services but on the people able to deliver care safely and consistently. This article examines how Kenya...

Regulating Long-Term Care in Kenya: How Standards, Inspection and Accountability Could Develop

Kenya’s long-term-care system is becoming more visible, but regulation remains distributed across social protection, health, professional oversight, existing institutional guidance and wider legal protections rather than a single comprehensive care...

Residential and Institutional Care in Kenya: Quality, Regulation and the Changing Role of Care Homes

Residential care remains a relatively small but important part of Kenya’s support system for older people, particularly where family care is unavailable, unsafe or no longer sufficient. This article examines...

Home-Based Care in Kenya: Building Safe and Sustainable Support Around Older People

For many older Kenyans, remaining at home means retaining family relationships, community identity and control over everyday life. Yet home-based care becomes harder to sustain as frailty, disability and complex...

County Governments and Long-Term Care in Kenya: Can Devolution Support More Responsive Local Systems?

Kenya’s 47 county governments already shape many of the services and environments that determine whether older people can remain healthy, independent and supported in their communities. As national care policy...

Ageing in Kenya’s Cities: How Urbanisation Is Changing Older People’s Care Needs

Kenya’s rapid urbanisation is changing where and how people grow older, reshaping family support, housing, mobility and access to care. Cities can bring older people closer to healthcare, markets and...

Ageing in Rural Kenya: Access, Distance and the Challenge of Delivering Long-Term Support

Rural ageing in Kenya brings together strong community networks and significant practical barriers to long-term support. Distance from health facilities, uneven transport, dispersed populations, workforce availability and changing family structures...

Community-Based Care for Older People in Kenya: Building Support Closer to Home

Most older Kenyans continue to live within families and communities rather than formal care settings, making local support central to the country’s evolving long-term-care system. This article examines how community...

Supporting Kenya’s Unpaid Carers: Recognition, Respite and the Future of Family Care

Kenya’s unpaid carers sustain much of the everyday support received by older people, people with disabilities and relatives with long-term health needs, yet their contribution can carry significant financial, employment...

Family Caregiving in Kenya: Can Informal Care Remain the Foundation of Long-Term Support?

Family caregiving remains central to long-term support for many older people in Kenya, sustaining daily life where formal care services are still developing. Yet urbanisation, migration, women’s employment, smaller households...

Social Protection and Older People in Kenya: From Income Security to Wider Care Support

Kenya’s social protection system gives older people an increasingly important layer of income security, with the Inua Jamii Older Persons Cash Transfer at its centre. Yet ageing can create needs...

Financing Long-Term Care in Kenya: Can the System Become More Sustainable?

Kenya finances later-life support through a combination of household resources, unpaid family care, social protection, health financing, public services, charitable provision and private spending rather than a dedicated long-term-care funding...

Who Provides Long-Term Care in Kenya? Mapping Families, Communities, Government and Providers

Long-term care in Kenya is delivered through a mixed and still-evolving network of families, communities, public services, faith-based and voluntary organisations, and private providers. This article maps where practical responsibility...

Kenya’s National Care Policy: What It Could Mean for Older People, Families and Long-Term Care

Kenya’s National Care Policy creates a new framework for recognising care as social and economic infrastructure rather than an invisible household responsibility. For older people, families and the emerging long-term-care...

Ageing and Long-Term Care in Kenya: How the Care System Is Evolving

Kenya’s approach to long-term care is evolving from a model centred predominantly on families and communities towards a broader care system involving national policy, county services, social protection, healthcare and...