[Sociodemographic factors affecting access to and utilization of health care by Filipino workers in Japan].
Foreign workers face many difficulties in obtaining health care in Japan. To clarify the sociodemographic factors that determine health care access for foreign workers, qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted. The respondents of this study were Filipino workers, who are one of the major ethnic groups in Japan. Quantitative survey (N = 276) was performed by delivering questionnaires to attendants at mass at 12 churches in the Greater Tokyo Area. To obtain a clearer understanding of what factors are associated with health care access, logistic regression analysis was conducted. Independent variables were gender, age, length of stay in Japan, type of job in Japan, whether they sent money periodically to family, Japanese proficiency, whether they were uninsured, and whether they belonged to an informational and/or tangible network. The independent variables were standardized before the analysis to isolate the contribution of each variable. The logistic regression results indicate that having support from a network (either informational or tangible or both) has the largest contribution to the healthcare access (beta = .780, P < 0.01), followed by length of stay in Japan (beta = .534, P < 0.01) and being female (beta = .356, P < 0.05). There was no significant association between Japanese proficiency and health care access. This study indicates that providing a social support network is an effective method of helping foreign workers to overcome the obstacles preventing them from obtaining health care access. This applies particularly to women and to those who are new comers to Japan.
Ohara-Hirano
Y
Y
School of Health Sciences, Kyushu University.
Kawata
C
C
D000328:Adult; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005260:Female; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D010679:Philippines / Q000208:ethnology