title: Health care usage among immigrants and native-born elderly populations in eleven European countries: results from SHARE.
abstract: Differences in health care utilization of immigrants 50 years of age and older relative to the native-born populations in eleven European countries are investigated. Negative binomial and zero-inflated Poisson regression are used to examine differences between immigrants and native-borns in number of doctor visits, visits to general practitioners, and hospital stays using the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe database. In the pooled European sample and in some individual countries, older immigrants use from 13 to 20% more health services than native-borns after demographic characteristics are controlled. After controlling for the need for health care, differences between immigrants and native-borns in the use of physicians, but not hospitals, are reduced by about half. These are not changed much with the incorporation of indicators of socioeconomic status and extra insurance coverage. Higher country-level relative expenditures on health, paying physicians a fee-for-service, and physician density are associated with higher usage of physician services among immigrants.
authors.affiliation: Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191, USA. aidasole@ub.edu
authors.forename: Aïda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Solé-Auró
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guillén
authors.forename: Eileen M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Crimmins
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016208:Databases, Factual; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005060:Europe / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D017678:Sex Distribution