2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
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abstract: 'Background: Unmet health needs should be, in theory, a minor issue in
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Italy where a publicly funded and universally accessible health system
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exists. This, however, does not seem to be the case. Moreover, in the
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last two decades responsibilities for health care have been
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progressively decentralized to regional governments, which have
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differently organized health service delivery within their territories.
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Regional decision-making has affected the use of health care services,
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further increasing the existing geographical disparities in the access
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to care across the country. This study aims at comparing self-perceived
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unmet needs across Italian regions and assessing how the reported
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reasons - grouped into the categories of availability, accessibility and
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acceptability - vary geographically.
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Methods: Data from the 2006 Italian component of the European Union
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Statistics on Income and Living Conditions are employed to explore
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reasons and predictors of self-reported unmet medical needs among 45,175
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Italian respondents aged 18 and over. Multivariate logistic regression
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models are used to determine adjusted rates for overall unmet medical
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needs and for each of the three categories of reasons.
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Results: Results show that, overall, 6.9\% of the Italian population
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stated having experienced at least one unmet medical need during the
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last 12 months. The unadjusted rates vary markedly across regions, thus
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resulting in a clear-cut north-south divide (4.6\% in the North-East vs.
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10.6\% in the South). Among those reporting unmet medical needs, the
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leading reason was problems of accessibility related to cost or
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transportation (45.5\%), followed by acceptability (26.4\%) and
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availability due to the presence of too long waiting lists (21.4\%). In
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the South, more than one out of two individuals with an unmet need
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refrained from seeing a physician due to economic reasons. In the
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northern regions, working and family responsibilities contribute
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relatively more to the underutilization of medical services. Logistic
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regression results suggest that some population groups are more
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vulnerable than others to experiencing unmet health needs and to
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reporting some categories of reasons. Adjusting for the predictors
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resulted in very few changes in the rank order of macro-area rates.
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Conclusions: Policies to address unmet health care needs should adopt a
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multidimensional approach and be tailored so as to consider such
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geographical heterogeneities.'
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affiliation: 'Cavalieri, M (Corresponding Author), Univ Catania, Dept Econ \& Business,
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Corso Italia 55, I-95129 Catania, Italy.
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Univ Catania, Dept Econ \& Business, I-95129 Catania, Italy.'
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article-number: '27'
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author: Cavalieri, Marina
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author-email: mcavali@unict.it
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author_list:
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- family: Cavalieri
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given: Marina
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da: '2023-09-28'
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doi: 10.1186/1476-072X-12-27
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files: []
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issn: 1476-072X
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journal: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH GEOGRAPHICS
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keywords: 'Italy; Unmet health care needs; Access to health care; Barriers to
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health care; Decentralization'
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keywords-plus: HEALTH-CARE-SYSTEM; SERVICES; ACCESS; USERS
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language: English
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month: MAY 12
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number-of-cited-references: '29'
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orcid-numbers: Cavalieri, Marina/0000-0002-2294-5588
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papis_id: 0bb06556813888fa324e20e887d2173c
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ref: Cavalieri2013geographicalvariatio
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times-cited: '53'
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title: 'Geographical variation of unmet medical needs in Italy: a multivariate logistic
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regression analysis'
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2023-10-01 08:15:07 +00:00
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type: article
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2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
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unique-id: WOS:000319429100001
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usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
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usage-count-since-2013: '10'
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volume: '12'
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web-of-science-categories: Public, Environmental \& Occupational Health
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year: '2013'
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