The Bali province has entered the era of the aging population structure in 2017 as the percentage of the elderly population reached 10.79%. The condition places Bali with the highest number of elderly people outside the Java area. Improvements in health, migration, high life expectancy, and the success of family planning programs have contributed to the increasing number of elderly people in Bali. The population aging phenomenon did not solely occur in Bali but also nationally and globally. Along with the aging population, degenerative diseases such as dementia are also increasing.

Dementia is a disease with a series of symptoms of decreased brain function such as memory, emotion, problem-solving, including communication that is progressive in nature to the point where it is no longer possible to carry out daily activities. In 2015, the World Alzheimer's Report estimated there were 9.9 million new cases of dementia each year worldwide and one new case every three seconds. The economic costs incurred for the upper-middle-income countries, such as Indonesia, are estimated at US$ 2.2 billion per year. This fee includes medical, social, and informal nursing costs.

Until the end of 2015, data on the prevalence of dementia at the population level was not available in Indonesia. The SurveyMETER study in Yogyakarta at the end of 2015 was the first study in Indonesia on the prevalence of dementia at the population level with a large sample. Indonesia is in dire need of dementia prevalence data in other provinces for planning for dementia management at local and national levels.

The Dementia Study in Bali Province conducted in March-April 2018 could answer the challenge of the need for data at the population level outside Java. In order to provide information as well as to find out the condition of dementia outside Java in general and Bali in particular. The study was conducted by SurveyMETER in collaboration with the Faculty of Economics and Business at Udayana University, the Suryani Institute, and Alzheimer's Indonesia (ALZI) with support from the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI). The study was conducted in all regencies/cities in Bali Province with a total of 1,685 elderly respondents in 117 villages. The data is then analyzed based on risk factors to support the birth of a sustainability policy in Bali which includes a policy for people with dementia. Study results presented in the Research Brief can be downloaded here.