Urbanization and place of death for the elderly: a 10-year population-based study.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the association between the place of death and the level of urbanization within the communities where the elderly were residing at the time of their death.


METHODS
A retrospective, population-based, cross-sectional study set in Taiwan, involving a total of 697,814 eligible deaths occurred between 1995 and 2004, among elderly people (aged 65 years or above).


RESULTS
After adjusting for other factors, the multilevel logistic regression analyses showed that home death was associated with lower levels of urbanization; as compared with participants living in the highest urbanization level (level 1), the respective adjusted odds of dying at home were 1.600, 2.769, 3.774, 4.481, 4.003 and 4.717 times for those living in the areas from the second highest to the lowest urbanization levels (levels 2-7).


CONCLUSIONS
After adjusting for other socio-demographic, clinical and healthcare factors, the place of death has a significant association with the level of urbanization among the elderly.
Lin
Herng-Ching
HC
School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan. henry11111@tmu.edu.tw
Lin
Yen-Ju
YJ
Liu
Tsai-Ching
TC
Chen
Chin-Shyan
CS
Lin
Chia-Chin
CC
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001293:Attitude to Death; D015981:Epidemiologic Factors; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D019452:Terminally Ill; D014507:Urbanization