Health Care Utilization by Canadian Women.

HEALTH ISSUES: While women are reported to be more frequent users of health services in Canada, differences in women's and men's health care utilization have not been fully explored. To provide an overview on women's healthcare utilization, we selected two key issues that are important for public policy purposes: access to care and patterns of utilization. These issues are examined using primarily data from the 1998/99 National Population Health Survey, complemented by the 2000 Canadian Community Health Survey and the 2001 Health Service Access Survey. KEY FINDINGS: * Women are twice as likely as men to report a regular family physician, but that proportion is very low (15.8%).* Women report significantly shorter specialist wait times (20.9 days) than men (55.4 days) for mental health, while the reverse is true for asthma and other breathing conditions (10.8 for men, 78.8 for women).* Reported mean wait times are significantly lower for men than for women pertaining to overall diagnostic tests: for MRI, 70.3 days for women compared to 29.1 days for men. DATA GAPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: * Measurement of possible system bias and its implication for equitable and quality healthcare for women requires larger provincial samples of the national surveys, along with a longitudinal design.* Either a national database on preventive services, or better alignment of provincial databases pertaining to health promotion and preventive services, is needed to facilitate data linkage with national surveys to undertake longitudinal studies that support gender based analyses.en are reported to be more frequent users of health services in Canada, differences in women's and men's health care utilization have not been fully explored. To provide an overview on women's healthcare utilization, we selected two key issues that are important for public policy purposes: access to care and patterns of utilization. These issues are examined using primarily data from the 1998/99 National Population Health Survey, complemented by the 2000 Canadian Community Health Survey and the 2001 Health Service Access Survey. KEY FINDINGS: * Women are twice as likely as men to report a regular family physician, but that proportion is very low (15.8%).* Women report significantly shorter specialist wait times (20.9 days) than men (55.4 days) for mental health, while the reverse is true for asthma and other breathing conditions (10.8 for men, 78.8 for women).* Reported mean wait times are significantly lower for men than for women pertaining to overall diagnostic tests: for MRI, 70.3 days for women compared to 29.1 days for men. DATA GAPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: * Measurement of possible system bias and its implication for equitable and quality healthcare for women requires larger provincial samples of the national surveys, along with a longitudinal design.* Either a national database on preventive services, or better alignment of provincial databases pertaining to health promotion and preventive services, is needed to facilitate data linkage with national surveys to undertake longitudinal studies that support gender based analyses.

Systematic review of the role of gender as a health determinant of hospitalization for depression.

OBJECTIVES: To conduct a systematic review of selected health determinants, including gender, and their impact on hospitalization rates for depression. Depression includes both depressive and bipolar disorders. Selected health determinants were gender, age, sex, family structure, education, and socioeconomic status. METHODS: Systematic search of conventional and fugitive literature sources. All reports of primary data, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis of primary data were included if they focused on hospitalization for depression and reported data by one or more of the selected health determinants. Two researchers independently evaluated each citation for inclusion and extracted data from the included studies. RESULTS: There is an important underreporting of health determinants data in studies of hospitalization for depression. No studies examined the role of gender. Age and sex were reported in 83 percent and 80 percent of the 110 included studies. Women showed a higher rate of hospitalization for depression than men (p < .05). Age and diagnosis had different effects in men and women. Adult women were significantly more likely than men to report a depressive disorder, whereas men were more likely to report a bipolar disorder (p < .05). Little can be concluded on the other health determinants. CONCLUSIONS: The importance of reporting hospitalization data and conducting hospital utilization analysis by sex and health determinants, including gender, must be emphasized.