Title: 2 Factors That Affect Health-Care Utilization | Health-Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination | The National Academies Press
Headings: 
2
Factors That Affect Health-Care Utilization
NEED FOR HEALTH-CARE SERVICES
ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE
Ability and Propensity to Use Services
Insurance and Ability to Pay for Services
DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH-CARE UTILIZATION ASSOCIATED WITH SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS
Race and Ethnicity
Sex
Working Age Adults
Spoken Language
Income and Poverty
Geography
Sociodemographic and Characteristics
Risk Factors
Utilization
Access
Geographic Practice Patterns
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES

Content: Recent attention to social determinants of health, such as education, economic stability, community safety, and availability of adequate housing and healthful food, has shown that they correlate with healthier populations ( ODPHP, 2017a ). People who have unmet social needs are more likely to be frequent ED users, to have repeat “no-shows” for medical appointments, and to have poorer glycemic and cholesterol control than those who are able to meet their needs ( Thomas-Henkel and Schulman, 2017 ). How need affects differential health-care utilization by specific populations of interest is discussed below with reference to poverty and its correlates and geographic area of residence, race and ethnicity, sex, age, language spoken, and disability status. Ideally, need should be the major determinant of health-care utilization, but other factors clearly have an effect. One of those factors is the ability to access care—including whether it is available, timely and convenient, and affordable ( Figueroa et al., 2017 ). Page 23
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Suggested Citation: " 2 Factors That Affect Health-Care Utilization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018.