Health Care Utilization
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Definition
Health Care Utilization is the quantification or description of the use of services by persons for the purpose of preventing and curing health problems, promoting maintenance of health and well-being, or obtaining information about one’s health status and prognosis.
Description
Health Care Utilization refers to the use of health care services. People use health care for many reasons including preventing and curing health problems, promoting maintenance of health and well-being, or obtaining information about their health status and prognosis.
- 1.
The number of services used over a period of time divided by a population denominator (e.g., in 2008, there were 320.1 ambulatory Care Visits to Physicians’ Offices per 100 persons living in the USA).
- 2.
The percentage of persons who use a certain service over individuals eligible for that service in a period of time (in the USA in 2008, 75% of all women aged 18 years...
References and Readings
- A comprehensive listing of sources of health utilization data for the United States can be found at the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce at http://phpartners.org/health_stats.html
- Aday, A. L., & Awe, W. C. (1997). Health services utilization models. In D. S. Gochman (Ed.), Handbook of health behavior research (Vol. 1, pp. 153–177). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
- Andersen, R. (2008). National health surveys and the behavioral model of health services use. Medical Care, 46(7), 647–653.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Andersen, R., & Newman, J. F. (2005). Societal and individual determinants of medical care utilization in the United States. The Milbank Quarterly, 83(4), 1–28.Google Scholar
- One comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health care utilization among industrialized countries is found in the OECD interactive database at www.oecd.org/health/healthdata