Inequality in health care use by the elderly in three districts in Rio de Janeiro]

This article analyzes social inequalities in health care services utilization by the elderly and tests the influence of place of residence. The study was based on a sample survey of residents 60 years of age and older from three different areas in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The multi-stage sampling method led to violations of the logistic regression assumptions which were considered in the data analysis stage. Need was the most important factor related to utilization. However, gender, type of service, income, and place of residence also showed positive impact on health care utilization. Moreover, the effect of the income was modified by place of residence. The area with the best living conditions (Copacabana) did not show inequalities in health care services utilization. The income gradient was more important in middle and lower-income areas, i.e., Méier and Santa Cruz, respectively.     

农村基层医疗卫生机构视力检查服务提供与利用

目的:分析农村基层医疗卫生机构视力检查服务的可及性对居民视力检查服务利用的影响。方法:利用医疗卫生机构和农户调查数据,采用描述统计和多元回归分析。结果:样本中33.2%的居民自报告视力不良,22.1%的居民曾做过视力检查,86%样本乡镇的卫生院和44%样本村的村卫生室可以提供视力检查服务;回归结果显示,乡镇卫生院提供视力检查服务将显著增加居民进行视力检查的可能性,但村卫生室是否提供视力检查服务对居民视力检查的利用没有显著影响。结论:农村居民对视力检查服务需求很大,但是利用率低。基层医疗卫生机构服务供给不足可能是导致农村居民服务利用率低的重要因素。建议国家继续推进基本公共卫生服务,加强基层医疗卫生服务机构开展基本视力检查的能力,促进农村居民对视力检查服务的利用,改善农村居民视力健康水平。     

Health care provider choice and utilization among the elderly in a state in Brazil: a structural model.

OBJECTIVES: Current demographic trends point to the need for understanding the health challenges facing the elderly in Latin America today. This study assessed whether health care provider choice and household income impact utilization and health among the elderly in Brazil. METHODS: Using a sample taken in 1995 in southern Brazil, a structural model was used to estimate the parameters of a function that represents the choice of health care provider, controlled for health care services utilization and a health production function. The dependent variable for the production function was self-assessed health. These two functions were structurally linked by introducing the probability of choosing a private over a public provider in the health production function as an added explanatory variable. With this structural linkage, the production function assessed how much the selection of a public versus a private provider affects health, while controlling for the possibility that individuals with poorer health have a tendency to prefer one or other health care provider. RESULTS: Health care services utilization by the elderly was constrained by two factors: the number of providers at the municipality level and household income. The elderly who live in municipalities with a greater number of public, outpatient clinics and providers were more likely to use the public system. Patients who used the public health care system had lower self-assessed health status than those using the private system. This result is valid even after controlling for demographic variables and morbidity. CONCLUSIONS: Brazil's public health system does not adequately provide for the health needs of the elderly population. Policy recommendations include further investments in the public health care infrastructure, full implementation of the National Plan for Elderly Health, and developing new programs for effective geriatric consultations at the primary care level.     

The Influence of Rural Versus Urban Residence on Utilization and Receipt of Care for Chronic Low Back Pain

Purpose : (1) To describe demographic and health‐related characteristics among rural/urban residents with chronic low back pain (LBP); (2) To determine if the utilization of diagnostics and treatments differs between rural and urban residents with chronic LBP; and (3) To determine the association between rural/urban residence and health care provider usage and if associations differ by race or gender. Methods : A 2006 cross‐sectional telephone survey of a representative sample of North Carolina residents. Subjects with chronic LBP were questioned regarding their health and health care use. Wald and chi‐square tests were used to determine differences between demographic and health‐related characteristics of rural/urban residents. Logistic regression was used to determine the association between rural/urban residence and health care provider use. Differences in race or gender were explored with stratified analysis with a P < .10. Findings : 588 residents of North Carolina with self‐reported chronic LBP sought care from a provider in the previous year. In bivariate analyses, when compared to urban residents, rural residents were younger, more likely to be uninsured, reported significantly higher levels of disability, and reported more depression/sadness. Rural residents were less likely to receive care from a rheumatologist (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.47 [95% CI, 0.22‐0.99]). Rural blacks were less likely to receive care from a physical therapist when compared to urban blacks (aOR 0.26 [95% CI, 0.07‐0.87]). Conclusion : Despite similarities of high provider use, imaging and therapeutics, when compared to urban residents, rural residents reported higher levels of functional limitation and depression.     

Does the Universal Health Insurance Program Affect Urban‐Rural Differences in Health Service Utilization Among the Elderly? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study in Taiwan

Purpose: To assess the impact of the introduction of Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI) on urban‐rural inequality in health service utilization among the elderly. Methods: A longitudinal data set of 1,504 individuals aged 65 and older was constructed from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly. A difference‐in‐differences model was employed and estimated by the random‐effect probit method. Finding: The introduction of universal NHI in Taiwan heterogeneously affected outpatient and inpatient health service utilization among the elderly in urban and rural areas. The introduction of NHI reduced the disparity of outpatient (inpatient) utilization between the previously uninsured and insured older urban residents by 12.9 (22.0) percentage points. However, there was no significant reduction in the utilization disparity between the previously uninsured and insured elderly among rural residents. Conclusions: Our study on Taiwan's experience should provide a valuable lesson to countries that are in an initial stage of proposing a universal health insurance system. Although NHI is designed to ensure the equitable right to access health care, it may result in differential impacts on health service utilization among the elderly across areas. The rural elderly tend to confront more challenges in accessing health care associated with spatial distance, transportation, social isolation, poverty, and a lack of health care providers, especially medical specialists.     

A re-examination of distance as a proxy for severity of illness and the implications for differences in utilization by race/ethnicity

The study analyzes the hospitalization patterns of elderly residents to examine whether the relation between distant travel and severity of illness is uniform across racial/ethnic subgroups. A hypothesis is made that severity thresholds could be higher for minorities than whites. Hospital discharge data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP-SID) of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality for New York residents is used, with a link to the Area Resource File and American Hospital Association's survey files. Logistic models compare the association of distant admission with severity corresponding to each local threshold level, race, and type of hospital admission. The study uses four discrete distance thresholds in contrast to recent work. Also, an examination of severity thresholds for distant travel for different types of admission may clarify different sources of disparities in health care utilization. The findings indicate that minorities are likely to have higher severity thresholds than whites in seeking distant hospital care, although these conclusions depend on the type of condition. The study results imply that if costly elective services were regionalized to get the advantages of high volume for both cost and quality of care, some extra effort at outreach may be desirable to reduce disparities in appropriate care. Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aging, health and place in residential care facilities in Beijing, China

In recent years, residential care has become an alternative option for elder care in Beijing, China. Little is known, however, about the well-being of elderly residents and the relationship between their health and living in residential care facilities (RCFs). Hence this research aims to understand the well-being of elderly residents in RCFs and how the environment of RCFs affects elderly people's everyday activities and health. The concepts of therapeutic landscapes, active aging, and well-being contribute to understanding the relationships among aging, health, and environment within RCF settings. Qualitative data from 46 in-depth semi-structured interviews with RCF managers, elderly residents, and family members in Beijing were transcribed and analysed using the constant comparative method. The results show that most of the elderly residents are satisfied with their lives in RCFs, but a few of them feel isolated and depressed after their relocation. Each RCF, as a place with its unique physical and social environment, has a significant influence on the elderly residents' physical and psychological well-being. Individual factors such as characteristics of elderly residents, their attitudes on aging and residential care, and family support also play important roles in their adaptation and well-being after relocation from home to RCFs. Although this study focuses on residential care at the local level, it sheds light on future research on geographical and socio-cultural meanings of elder care at local, regional, and national levels in China.     

The effects of Taiwan's National Health Insurance on access and health status of the elderly

The primary objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Taiwan's National Health Insurance program (NHI), established in 1995, on improving elderly access to care and health status. Further, we estimate the extent to which NHI reduces gaps in access and health across income groups. Using data from a longitudinal survey, we adopt a difference-in-difference methodology to estimate the causal effect of Taiwan's NHI. Our results show that Taiwan's NHI has significantly increased utilization of both outpatient and inpatient care among the elderly, and such effects were more salient for people in the low- or middle-income groups. Our findings also reveal that although Taiwan's NHI greatly increased the utilization of both outpatient and inpatient services, this increased utilization of health services did not reduce mortality or lead to better self-perceived general health status for Taiwanese elderly. Measures more sensitive than mortality and self-perceived general health may be necessary for discerning the health effects of NHI. Alternatively, the lack of NHI effects on health may reflect other quality and efficiency problems inherent in the system not yet addressed by NHI.     

The effect of distance to primary care physician on health care utilization and disease burden

BACKGROUND: The relationship of distance to care with total health care utilization and disease burden is not well understood among the managed care population. PURPOSES: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the distance from a patient's home to his or her primary care physician (PCP) and the patient's health characteristics. METHODOLOGY: This was a population-based study of commercial health maintenance organization (HMO) members enrolled in one medium-sized health plan in Michigan in 2001. This study measured health care utilization from all settings (per member per year [PMPY]). Disease burden measure was based on the Adjusted Clinical Group (ACG) system. Distance was defined as straight-line distance between a member's residency and his or her PCP. Both direct standardization and regression modeling were used to assess the effect of distance on utilization. FINDINGS: Both utilization and disease burden increased as distance increased, especially among members selecting PCPs in an academic health system (AHS). The difference in observed utilization between local (0-10 miles) and distant (>30 miles) members was 973 dollars (PMPY) for the AHS and 193 dollars (PMPY) for the community independent practice associations (IPA). Compared with age-sex adjustment, ACG adjustment reduced local-distant difference within the same practice group to a greater extent (281 dollars and 59 dollars remaining for the academic and community groups, respectively). Distance as a whole exerted a statistically significant positive effect on either disease burden score or utilization in regression modeling. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: HMO members consume more health care and had higher disease burden as their distance from their PCPs increased. The distance traveled by the individuals to their PCPs could be incorporated when adjusting managed care financial risk models. Other remedies include negotiating higher capitation rates for distant patients, carving out distant patients from any financial risk model, or excluding such patients from provider performance assessment.     

贫困地区农村居民卫生服务利用及影响因素分析

目的 分析贫困地区农村居民卫生服务利用情况及影响因素。方法 利用2018 - 2019年“精准健康扶贫与人口发展”专项调查数据,基于Andersen卫生服务利用行为模型和层次线性模型,对贫困地区农村居民卫生服务利用情况和影响因素进行研究。结果 有79%的农村居民四周内患病会就诊,35%的居民在村卫生室就医,58%的居民进行疾病预防和健康保健。层次线性模型显示个人和村级层面因素对卫生服务利用均有显著影响。村人均收入（β = 0.130）、就诊单程花费时间（β = - 0.104）、年龄（β = - 0.005）、建档立卡（β = 0.108）对四周患病就诊情况较为显著(P＜0.05);村卫生室数量（β = 0.151）、报销比例满意度（β = 0.142）、就诊距离（β = - 0.240）、就诊单程花费时间（β = - 0.133）、医生医疗水平满意度（β = - 0.117）对就诊机构的选择较为显著(P＜0.01);职业（β = - 0.091）、自评健康（β = 0.239）和医生医疗水平满意度（β = 0.162）影响农村居民是否进行疾病预防和健康保健（P＜0.01）。结论 贫困地区农村居民卫生服务需求高但利用不足。建议增加卫生投入并制定当地特色医疗保障制度;加强健康教育和健康干预;强化基层卫生机构建设和医疗服务能力,推动健康扶贫的可持续发展。     

A mixed logit model of health care provider choice: analysis of NSS data for rural India

In order to address the persistent problems of access to and delivery of health care in rural India, a better understanding of the individual provider choice decision is required. This paper is an attempt in this direction as it investigates the determinants of outpatient health care provider choice in rural India in the mixed multinomial logit (MMNL) framework. This is the first application of the mixed logit to the modeling of health care utilization. We also use the multiple imputation technique to impute the missing prices of providers that an individual did not visit when she was ill. Using data from National Sample Survey Organization of India, we find the following: price and distance to a health facility play significant roles in health care provider choice decision; when health status is poor, distance plays a less significant role in an adult's provider choice decision; price elasticity of demand for outpatient care varies with income, with low-income groups being more price-sensitive than high-income ones. Furthermore, outpatient care for children is more price-elastic than that for adults, which reflects the socio-economic structure of a typical household in rural India where an adult's health is more important than that of a child for the household's economic sustenance.     

Health and health care status of African-born residents of Metropolitan Washington, DC

This study examines health status, health behaviors, and health care access and utilization among African-born residents of the metropolitan Washington, DC area. A telephone survey was administered to a random sample of 525 African-born adults. Results are compared to those for the general local and regional population. Twenty-nine percent of respondents were uninsured; 24% lacked a usual, appropriate source of primary care. Among female respondents, 44% and 34% reported never having had a mammogram or pap smear, respectively. Most health status indicators demonstrated relatively good health, but 15% of respondents reported one of the infectious diseases we investigated. Consumption of alcohol and tobacco was relatively low. African-born residents are generally at risk regarding access to health care, and certain segments (the uninsured, recent arrivals) face critical access barriers. Infectious diseases are a notable feature of health status, and use of some preventive and dental services is considerably lower than for the general population.     

Sources of ambulatory care and utilization models.

For this study I gathered information on sources of ambulatory care and ambulatory care utilization, together with social, demographic, and health information. I applied a revision of Andersen's behavioral utilization model to all these data to try to explain patterns of ambulatory care utilization. Data are from a household survey of Rhode Island residents that was conducted in 1974. I have used multiple classification analysis (MCA), since the provider variable formed from the information on medical care sources is best conceptualized as being measured at a nominal level. It emphasizes both the number of different affiliations and the specialty and type of each affiliation. The MCA analysis with the provider set variable and the social, demographic, and need variables has a multiple R2 (adjusted) of 0.40. The most important explanatory variable is the number of conditions, a need variable; the next most important is the provider variable. This study demonstrates the value of variables that account for providers of care and ambulatory care patterns as well as measures of need and social and demographic variables in a complete model of utilization behavior.     

中国失能老人照护模式选择及其影响因素分析--基于非正式照护与正式照护的关系

基于2014年中国老年健康影响因素跟踪调查数据,实证分析相关因素对中国失能老人选择照护模式的影响。结果显示,中国失能老人选择非正式照护较多,养老院照护和家政服务利用率较低。低龄、夫妻分离、城镇、重度失能、少子、子女距离较远、社区照护体系完善的失能老人对正式照护的利用率更高;非正式照护对家政服务有较强替代作用。建议在医养结合的基础上,建立“家庭养老院”,实现非正式照护与正式照护的整合,推进健康老龄化。     

A measuring instrument for evaluation of quality systems.

OBJECTIVE: To develop an instrument for provider organizations, consumers, purchasers, and policy makers to measure and compare the development of quality systems in provider organizations. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of provider organizations using a structured questionnaire to survey managers. SETTING: The Netherlands. STUDY PARTICIPANTS: Provider organizations of six health care fields: primary health care, care for the disabled, mental health care, care for the elderly, hospital care and welfare care. MAIN MEASURES: Existence of quality assurance and quality improvement activities. RESULTS: The study presents a survey instrument for assessing the quality assurance and improvement activities of health care provider organizations and the developmental stage of quality systems. The survey instrument distinguishes five focal areas for quality improvement activities and four developmental stages. The study also reports data on the reliability and validity of the survey instrument. CONCLUSION: The instrument is reliable, easy to administer, and useful across health care fields as well as different kinds of organizations. Developing quality systems provide a common language across all parts of the health care sector. By assigning the activities to focal areas and developmental stages the instrument gives insight into the implementation of quality systems in health care. Comparable information on quality assurance activities increases the accountability of providers. Because of the efficient (not time consuming) approach, the instrument complements existing accreditation reviews.     

中国农村基层医疗卫生服务质量评价——需方角度

采用2008年国家卫生服务调查的数据,从需方角度,通过利用者感知质量对我国农村基层医疗卫生服务质量进行了评价。结果表明:影响农村居民对基层医疗服务的感知质量和利用水平的原因主要在于相对于其经济承受能力较高的医疗费用、基层医疗机构较差的设备环境和偏低的技术水平等。建议:一是农村基层医疗卫生机构围绕改善设备环境、提高收费的合理性和提高医务人员技术水平等加强医疗服务质量建设。二是进一步完善农村居民医疗保障制度,将农村基层医疗卫生机构服务项目纳入保障范围,并适当提高补偿水平。     

Organizational and Provider Structural Changes and Resource Utilization of Services for the Elderly in Norway

This paper presents recent innovations in organizing provider work and changes in organizational structure that promote: (1) reduction in fragmentation of care (2) improved continuity and quality of care and (3) improved cost-containment efforts and (4) better decision making. Data is also given on resource utilization. It is anticipated that these models of care and services are prototypes of future models of care for the elderly as this population increases in number. Data is also presented that suggests that, eventually, increases in taxes and social security contributions and/or the rationing of health care may be necessary to meet pensioner health needs.     

Organizational and provider structural changes and resource utilization of services for the elderly in Norway

This paper presents recent innovations in organizing provider work and changes in organizational structure that promote: (1) reduction in fragmentation of care (2) improved continuity and quality of care and (3) improved cost-containment efforts and (4) better decision making. Data is also given on resource utilization. It is anticipated that these models of care and services are prototypes of future models of care for the elderly as this population increases in number. Data is also presented that suggests that, eventually, increases in taxes and social security contributions and/or the rationing of health care may be necessary to meet pensioner health needs.     

A nurse practitioner in a family practice residency: role description and impact on continuity of the practitioner-patient relationship.

The nurse practitioner and physician's assistant are new health practitioners providing primary health care. When teamed with family physicians, these new health practitioners can extend patient services. Family physicians should be trained to work with new health practitioners effectively. Presented is a model where a nurse practitioner and family practice residents work as co-practitioners in a family practice unit. A nurse practitioner in this role can improve the continuity of the relationship between patient and provider in a family practice residency.