Abstract
BackgroundUtilization of primary health care is an important aspect of elderly internal migrants’ access to screening and preventive services in China. It has been evident that social contacts, such as community engagement, social mobilization, and the ability to communicate were related to health service delivery, but little has been done to explore the relationship between social contacts and utilization of primary health care for this group. This study aimed to explore the factors influencing utilization of primary health care from the perspective of social contacts among elderly internal migrants in China.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study including 1544 elderly internal migrants in eight cities. Whether these indivdiuals had chosen to participate in the free health checkup organized in the previous year was adopted as an indicator of the utilization of primary health care. The number of local friends and amount of exercise time per day were measured as a proxy for social contacts. Multivariate binary logistic regression was used to investigate the association of social contacts with the likelihood of using primary health care.Results55.6% of the respondents were men, and the mean age was 66.34 years (SD, 5.94). 88.6% had received an education of high school or below. 12.9% had no local friends. 5.2% did not exercise. Just 33.1% had participated in a free medical check-up. Social contacts, age, and medical insurance were associated with more use of primary health care among elderly internal migrants in China.ConclusionThe role of the community in promoting the use of primary health care should be expanded, such as creating community-based campaigns specifically targeting elderly internal migrants or designing social or sports activities tailored to increase the opportunity for contact between local elders and their internal migrant peers.
Highlights
Utilization of primary health care is an important aspect of elderly internal migrants’ access to screening and preventive services in China
Measurements Variables and utilization of primary health care Considering that our study focused on elderly internal migrants who had reached the statutory retirement age, we mainly selected indicators of informal networks to weigh the social contacts of our study participants
Demographic characteristics and social constants are presented in Table 1. 55.6% of our sample was men, and the mean age was 66.34 years (SD, 5.94). 50.2% of the sample were in the range of 60 to 64 years of age. 88.6% of the individuals had received an education of high school or below. 78.2% were married. 74.7% of the respondents were in the eastern region
Summary
Utilization of primary health care is an important aspect of elderly internal migrants’ access to screening and preventive services in China. Internal migrants do not have the same rights and benefits as the local registered population in a variety of areas, e.g., social services and health care, because they have no “hukou” (are not registered, have no official residency status) in their receiving city [4]. They are exposed to a number of health risks before, during, and after migration, but the barriers to getting health services in the receiving cities may hamper their access to necessary health care, especially for the elderly who are more in need of health services [5]. The theme of working internal migrants (< 60 years old) and health is common in the literature [6] and there have been some studies focusing on the health of internal migrant women and children [7], elderly internal migrants are rarely noticed
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