Title

Poverty and working status in changes of unmet health care need in old age

Authors

w  ¹Park, S (Park, Sojung)

w  ² Kim, B (Kim, BoRin)

w  ³ Kim, S (Kim, Soojung)

Author Affiliations

w  ¹ Washington Univ St Louis, One Brookings Dr, St Louis, MO 63105 USA

w  ² Univ New Hampshire, 55 Coll Rd, Durham, NH 03824 USA

w  ³ Univ Michigan, 1415 Washington Hts, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA

Publisher

Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Date of Publication

JUN 2016

Series/Report no.

HEALTH POLICY, Volume. 120, Issue. 6

Key words

Unmet health care needs; Old age; Working; Poverty

Abstract

This study examined relationships between socioeconomic disadvantage and unmet health care needs among older adults in Korea adjusting for predisposing and health need factors. We examined how older adults’ low-income status and working status affect unmet needs for healthcare over time, and how the association varies by reason for unmet needs (i.e. financial or non-financial).

We used three waves of data (2009, 2011, 2012) from the Korea Health Panel (KHP) survey and a multinomial logistic mixed model to analyze how low socioeconomic disadvantages affects changes in unmet healthcare needs independently and in combination.

Results showed that near-poor elders were more likely to experience increased risk of unmet need due to non-financial constraints over time. When working, near-poor elders risk of unmet healthcare needs due to financial and non-financial factors increases substantially over time.

Across societies, different subgroups of older adults may be at risk of unmet healthcare needs, contingent on healthcare policies. Our finding suggests that in Korea, near-poor working elders are the vulnerable subgroup at highest risk of unmet healthcare needs. This finding provides much-needed evidence of heterogeneity of vulnerability in unmet healthcare needs and can be used to design more affordable and accessible programs and services for this group.

주요 내용

 본 연구는 한국 노인들의 Socioeconomic disadvantage와 Unmet health care needs 사이의 관계를 조사하였다. 노인의 저소득 지위와 근무 상태가 시간에 따른 Unmet health care needs에 어떻게 영향을 미치는지, 그리고 충족되지 않은 needs(즉, 재무적 또는 비금융적 이유)에 따라 연관성이 어떻게 달라지는지를 조사했다.

 그 결과 빈곤에 가까운 노인들은 시간이 지남에 따라 비경제적 제약으로 인해 Unmet health care needs를 더 많이 경험하는 것으로 나타났다. 경제 활동을 할 때, 빈곤에 가까운 노인들은 재정 및 비재정적 요인으로 인해 health care needs를 충족하지 못할 가능성이 시간이 지날수록 현저히 증가한다. 

ISSN

0168-8510

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2016.03.004