Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1975.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1975.

This study is a part of a three stage pursuit to examine and to comprehend the relationship between the resources available, the apparent utilization patterns of those resources by the population being served, and the selected characteristics of the populations utilizing and not utilizing the prevailing medical care system. The first stage of the research involves the examination of the existing patterns of medical care utilization by socioeconomic status groups. Cross-national Comparison of Physician Utilization by the Socioeconomic Status Groups is the pilot research for the first stage and both modifies and develops the methodology for this type of research and also examines the physician utilization patterns of a population in well defined basic measurements — in this case the socioeconomic status index, the diagnosed disease, and the number of physician contacts. The comparison of the physician utilization patterns of socioeconomic status groups in respect to the prevailing medical care delivery system necessarily involves cross-area studies at least at regional level, but most likely cross-national comparisons as well. This study used already collected data, nevertheless, primary data, which had been collected and partly analysed in the World Health Organization/International Collaborative Study of Medical Care Utilization. The data came from twelve geographical areas, altogether from seven countries, and provided documented research material on the surveyed respondents' social characteristics, standard diagnostic procedures, and standard definitions of the interactions between the users and the prevailing medical care delivery systems. The social characteristics were used separately, but in a standardized way, in order to derive socioeconomic status groups in each area; the diseases distributions were examined in relationship to the socioeconomic status groups, and the physician utilization patterns were related to the socioeconomic status groups while controlling for the distributions of selected diseases, after which the study areas were compared to each other in terms of the exhibited relationships between the physician utilization and the socioeconomic status groups. The physician utilization patterns were found to vary only little from one area to another, however, consistently, to warrant the use of derived information for the second stage of the research. Physician utilizations were very weakly correlated to the socioeconomic status and these correlations were not substantially effected by the selection of the controlling disease, i.e., they were consistent. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate

Recent reports indicate that the incidence of the leading causes of death in the United States (specifically, cancer and heart and cardiovascular disease) is related to health habits or lifestyle. In an attempt to promote better health habits, adult patients attending a family physician's practice were asked to complete a brief health habit questionnaire (HHQ) and then advised by their physician to seek self-help information on how to improve specific health-related habits. The dependent measure was the percentage of persons requesting self-help information from a display in the physician's office. 55.81% of persons receiving physician advice (n=43) requested information as opposed to 4.54% in a control group (n=44) which completed the HHQ but, did not receive physician advice and 4.25% (n=47) of a control group that did not complete an HHQ or receive physician advice. Follow-up interviews indicated that a majority of persons requesting self-help information read that information. Follow-up interviews also indicate that a higher percentage of persons who had requested information were currently attempting to change health habits than those who had not requested information. Furthermore, a majority of persons who had requested self-help information and were attempting to change health habits reported following one or more of the suggestions in the self-help information. / M.S.

This research sought to identify the determinants of nonuse and high use of physician services and assess whether or not patterns of nonuse and high use changed over time. The population of interest was a group of elderly unmarried women who participated in the Longitudinal Retirement History Survey from 1969 to 1979. Andersen and Newman's (2) health care services utilization model served as the conceptual framework for this research. Of specific interest was the relationship between age strata and health care behavior. Age proved to be a stratifying variable within the health care delivery system. Over the ten year survey period, the health care behavior of preretirement and postretirement nonusers and high users differed significantly. A decline in nonuse was also associated with the transition years. This finding could be attributed to the "near poor" becoming eligible for Medicare. In any event, these data show that utilization of physician services is likely to increase among some unmarried women in their middle 60's.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2006--Frankfurt (Main).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 1994. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-154).

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