Korea Journal of Hospital Management (한국병원경영학회지)

Korean Society of Hospital Management (한국병원경영학회)
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Association between single-person households in the elderly and unmet medical need

고령층 1인 가구 여부와 미충족의료의 연관성

  • Bon Hee Gu (Department of Public Health, General Graduate school of Dankook University) ;
  • Min Soo kim (Department of Public Health, General Graduate school of Dankook University) ;
  • Hyeon Ji Lee (Cancer Screening Division, National Cancer Control Institute, National Cancer Center) ;
  • Jae Hyun Kim (Department of Health Administration, College of Health Science, Dankook University)
  • 구본희 (단국대학교 일반대학원 보건학과) ;
  • 김민수 (단국대학교 일반대학원 보건학과) ;
  • 이현지 (국립암센터 암검진사업부) ;
  • 김재현 (단국대학교 보건과학대학 보건행정학과)
  • Received : 2023.12.21
  • Accepted : 2024.03.08
  • Published : 2024.03.30
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Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted to provide basic data for the establishment of effective health policies for the unmet medical experience that may occur among the elderly depending on whether they live in a singleperson household or not. Methodology: This study used data from the 8th National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2019-2020) and excluded cases with missing values in variables for the total number of respondent participants of 15,469. Finally, 2,850 subjects aged 65 or older were selected for final analysis. This study examined the relationship between experiences of unmet medical needs, attempting to confirm the relationship between single-person households and unmet medical needs through subgroup analysis considering gender, age, and household income. Results: According to the results, in the case of single-person households, the odds ratio (OR) for unmet medical needs was significantly higher at 1.60 times (95% CI: 1.16-2.21). Upon conducting subgroup analyses for gender, age, and household income quintiles, the OR was significantly higher at 2.24 times (95% CI: 1.14-4.41) for males and 1.48 times (95% CI: 1.02-2.14) for females, statistically significant in both cases. For individuals aged 65-69, the OR was significantly higher at 1.90 times (95% CI: 1.04-3.47), but for those aged 70-74 and over 75, it was not statistically significant. In the case of households with 'low' income, the OR was higher at 1.62 times (95% CI: 1.16-2.26), and for 'middle' income, it was significantly higher at 3.21 times (95% CI: 1.08-9.51). Conclusion: This study confirmed that the experience of unmet medical care is high among men who make up single-person households and low-income seniors. Therefore, this study suggests that policies to expand medical services and support welfare for single-person households should be established to resolve these problems, showing that health policies that take into account individual and regional characteristics are needed to improve medical accessibility for single-person households.

Keywords

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