Does health status explain gender dissimilarity in healthcare use among older adults?

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which gender dissimilarity in healthcare use in later life is explained by variation in health and social-economic statuses. It is based on a nationwide sample in Brazil of 12,757 men and 16,186 women aged 60+ years. Individuals with great difficulties or unable to perform at least one daily living activity and/or to walk 100m were classified as "established disability". Those who had interrupted their activities in the previous 15 days because of a health problem were regarded as "temporarily disabled". The remaining we classified as "healthy". These categories were analyzed by multinomial logistic regression, taking "healthy" as the reference category. Prevalences of established disability were 6% among men and 11% among women. Temporary disabilities were 7.9% and 10.1%, respectively. Poor health status was associated with increased use of healthcare among men and women, but men and women differed significantly in relation to use pattern after adjustment for age, health status, and income. Older women were greater consumers of outpatient services and older men of inpatient care.