Delay of routine health care during the COVID-19 pandemic: A theoretical model of individuals’ risk assessment and decision making

Prakriti Shukla, Myeong Lee, Samantha A. Whitman and Kathleen H. Pine

Social Science & Medicine, 2022, vol. 307, issue C

Abstract: Delaying routine health care has been prevalent during the COIVD-19 pandemic. Macro-level data from this period reveals that U.S. patients under-utilized routine health care services such as primary care visits, preventative tests, screenings, routine optometry care, dental appointments, and visits for chronic disease management. Yet, there is a gap in research on how and why patients understand risks associated with seeking or delaying routing health care during an infectious disease pandemic. Our research addresses this gap based on semi-structured interviews with 40 participants living in regions across the United States. By building upon Unger-Saldaña and Infante-Castañeda's model of delayed health care, we extend this model by articulating how health care delays happen during an infectious disease pandemic. Specifically, we show how perceptions of uncertainty and subjective risk assessments shape people's decisions to delay routine health care while they operate at two levels, internal and external to one's social bubble, interacting with each other.

Keywords: Delayed health care; COVID-19; Risk assessment; Decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622004701
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:307:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622004701

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115164

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().