Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(4), 1330-1341; doi:10.3390/ijerph7041330
Article

Barriers to Health Care among the Elderly in Japan

Chiyoe Murata 1,* email, Tetsuji Yamada 2 email, Chia-Ching Chen 3 email, Toshiyuki Ojima 1 email, Hiroshi Hirai 4 email and Katsunori Kondo 4 email
1 Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, 1-20-1 Handayama, Higashiku, Hamamatsu, 431-3192, Japan 2 Rutgers University, Department of Economics and Center for Children and Childhood Studies, Camden, NJ 08102, USA 3 New York Medical College, School of Health Sciences & Practice, Department of Epidemiology & Community Health, Valhalla, NY 10595, USA 4 Nihon Fukushi University, Center for Well-being and Society, 5-22-35 Chiyoda Nakaku Nagoya, Aichi, 460-0012, Japan
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 21 December 2009; in revised form: 9 March 2010 / Accepted: 15 March 2010 / Published: 26 March 2010
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Behavior and Public Health)
PDF Full-text Download PDF Full-Text [177 KB, uploaded 26 March 2010 09:28 CET]
Abstract: Japan is undergoing a set of health care reforms aimed at cutting rising health care costs and increasing the efficiency of health care delivery. This empirical study used a large-scale community survey on 15,302 elderly people 65 years and older (56.0% women) conducted in seven municipalities in 2006, to reveal clear-cut evidence of barriers to necessary care. The reasons for not getting health care is attributed to health care cost for the elderly with lower income, while higher income counterparts reported being busy or having a condition not serious enough to seek care.
Keywords: cost burden; socioeconomic status (SES); barriers to health care

Article Statistics

Click here to load and display the download statistics.

Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Murata, C.; Yamada, T.; Chen, C.-C.; Ojima, T.; Hirai, H.; Kondo, K. Barriers to Health Care among the Elderly in Japan. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7, 1330-1341.

AMA Style

Murata C, Yamada T, Chen C-C, Ojima T, Hirai H, Kondo K. Barriers to Health Care among the Elderly in Japan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2010; 7(4):1330-1341.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Murata, Chiyoe; Yamada, Tetsuji; Chen, Chia-Ching; Ojima, Toshiyuki; Hirai, Hiroshi; Kondo, Katsunori. 2010. "Barriers to Health Care among the Elderly in Japan." Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 7, no. 4: 1330-1341.

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health EISSN 1660-4601 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert