Multi-Morbid Health Profiles and Specialty Healthcare Service Use: A Moderating Role of Poverty

Ilan Kwon, Oejin Shin, Sojung Park and Goeun Kwon
Additional contact information
Ilan Kwon: School of Social Work at Michigan State University, Baker Hall, 655 Auditorium Road, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Oejin Shin: School of Social Work at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1010 W Nevada St, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Sojung Park: Brown School of Social Work at Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA
Goeun Kwon: Brown School of Social Work at Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Increasing life expectancy in the USA makes a better understanding of the heterogeneous healthcare needs of the aging population imperative. Many aging studies have discovered multimorbid health problems focusing mainly on various physical health conditions, but not on combined mental or behavioral health problems. There is also a paucity of studies with older adults who use professional healthcare services caring for their mental and substance-related conditions. This study aims to enhance the knowledge of older peoples’ complex healthcare needs involving physical, mental, and behavioral conditions; examine the relationship between multi-morbid health profiles and specialty healthcare service utilization; and investigate its association to poverty. The study data were derived from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in 2013 ( n = 6296 respondents aged 50 years and older). To identify overall health conditions, nine indicators, including physical, mental, and substance/alcohol, were included. Healthcare service utilization was measured with four mutually exclusive categories: No treatment, mental health treatment only, substance use treatment only, and both. We identified four health profiles: Healthy (82%), having physical health problems (6%), physical and mental health problems (4%), and behavioral problems (8%). Older people’s health profiles were differentially associated with healthcare use. Those living in poverty with both physical and mental health problems or substance/alcohol health problems were less likely to receive mental health and substance use treatments than those with more financial resources. Implications for geriatric healthcare practices and policy are discussed.

Keywords: multi-morbidity; health profiles of older adults; specialty healthcare; poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/11/1956/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/11/1956/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:11:p:1956-:d:236550

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().