Barriers to health care among the elderly in Japan.
Japan is undergoing a set of health care reforms aimed at cutting rising health care costs and increasing the efficiency of health care delivery. This empirical study used a large-scale community survey on 15,302 elderly people 65 years and older (56.0% women) conducted in seven municipalities in 2006, to reveal clear-cut evidence of barriers to necessary care. The reasons for not getting health care is attributed to health care cost for the elderly with lower income, while higher income counterparts reported being busy or having a condition not serious enough to seek care.
Murata
Chiyoe
C
Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, 1-20-1 Handayama, Higashiku, Hamamatsu, 431-3192, Japan. cmurata@hama-med.ac.jp
Yamada
Tetsuji
T
Chen
Chia-Ching
CC
Ojima
Toshiyuki
T
Hirai
Hiroshi
H
Kondo
Katsunori
K
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D017048:Health Care Costs; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009313:National Health Programs; D012923:Social Class