The Effect of Social Capital on Medical Care Use by the Elderly : The Concept of Health Congruence

• 발행기관: 한국자료분석학회
• 저자명: 주시연(Siyeon Ju) 임재영(Jae-Young Lim)
• 간행물 정보: 『Journal of The Korean Data Analysis Society (JKDAS)』Vol.20 No.1, 29~46쪽, 전체 18쪽
• 주제분류: 자연과학 > 통계학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2018.02.28

영문 초록

It is widely known that the medical cost for the elderly severely threatens the stability of national health insurance system. We investigated the impact of social capital on the medical care use by the elderly. The concept of health congruence, the conformity between objective and subjective health status, was used as a mediator affected by the social capital, and determines the medical use of the elderly in turn. Respondents from HAPS (Hallym ageing panel study) data were separated into healthy and unhealthy group by their objective health status, and subdivided into congruent (good and poor health realist) and incongruent (good health pessimist and poor health optimist) group by whether their health congruence had been achieved. After controlling for socioeconomic, health-related, and supplier-related variables, health congruence turned out to influence the efficiency of medical care use regardless of the health status, and social capital improves healthy elderly’s health congruence, which prevents unnecessary visit to medical institutions. Nevertheless, we should thoroughly take the level of social capital and features of subject into consideration before adopting social capital as a policy instrument aimed for the elderly.

목차

1. Introduction

2. Data

3. Methods

4. Empirical results

5. Robustness test

6. Conclusion

References

키워드

Social capital Health congruence Medical care use Elderly