Health Status and Medical Utilization of Women in Rural Area / 農村醫學 地域保健

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to examine health inequality for gender and region in Korea. Especially it focused on health status such as disease prevalence and medical utilization of rural women. METHODS: Data from the Korea national health and nutrition survey in 2001 were used. The final sample size was 37,108 individuals with age 20 and over. This study applied the logistic regression for nominal variables such as disease prevalence and unmet care needs and with the regression for continuos variables such as the length and costs of medical services. RESULTS: Rates of disease prevalence and unmet care needs for chronic disease in rural area are higher than those in middle cities and big cities, and regional differences of those for women are more than those for mens with controlling ages. There could be interaction effect with region and sex. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that health policy maker should take consider of special status of rural women who are in health inequality.