Healthcare utilisation among the Belgian elderly in relation to their socio-economic status

Sarah Hoeck, Guido François, Johan Van der Heyden, Joanna Geerts and Guido Van Hal

Health Policy, 2011, vol. 99, issue 2, 174-182

Abstract: Objectives To analyse the association between healthcare utilisation of elderly persons (65 and over) in Belgium in terms of contacts with GP or specialist and the socio-economic indicators household income, highest educational level within the household, and housing tenure.Methods A cross-sectional study based on 4494 non-institutionalised elderly participants in the Belgian Health Interview Surveys of 2001 and 2004. Socio-economic gradients in contacts (yes or no) with a GP or specialist were explored, based on the socio-behavioural model of Andersen, a conceptual framework that includes the most important determinants of healthcare utilisation. Three multivariate models were constructed using multiple logistic regression.Results After adjustment for age, sex, health status (self-assessed health, functional restrictions, and comorbidity), region, and living situation, initial differences in contacts with a GP and specialist between the different socio-economic groups disappeared among the elderly. On the other hand, contacts with a specialist remain dependent on SES in the younger population.Conclusions Adjustment for the determinants of healthcare utilisation among the Belgian elderly nullified the socio-economic gradients in contacts with a GP and specialist that initially existed. The results point to a potential link with the Belgian social and health policy.

Keywords: Elderly; persons; Healthcare; utilisation; Socio-economic; status; General; practitioner; Specialist; Belgium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(10)00234-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:99:y:2011:i:2:p:174-182

Access Statistics for this article

Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput

More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu () and ().