Risk Factor of Fallings and the Associated Medical Utilization among Elderly in Taiwan
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Huang, Yu-Hsin
Abstract
Due to the progress of medical technology, the average life expectancy extends and the elderly population is increasing rapidly. To date, aged population has become an important issue around the world. According to the statistics, "falling" is the most common cause of death and hospitalization among elderly people. The impact of falling is not only on physical and mental health, but also on the medical utilization. However, most of the existing studies only focus on risk factors of fallings. Nowadays, the analysis of relationship between falls and medical utilization still lacks in Taiwan, and the subject mostly appears in the field of public health, less complete and quantified analysis of a nationally representative sample. To remedy the gap of the existing studies, one purpose of this paper is to test common risk factors of falls among elderly, another is to estimate the effects of falling on the medical utilization and medical costs in Taiwan.
In total, 2,108 older people drawn from Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging in 1999 and 2003 were selected for empirical analysis. The Probit model, Negative Binomial model and Tobit model were estimated for the risk factors and associated medical costs that are assoicated with fallings, respectively. Results show that age, female, depression score, and number of chronic disease would increase the probability of falling; the enhance of exercise, activities of daily living will reduce fall probability. The results also reveal that falling has a significant positive impact on all types of medical utilization in total and female sample; older man’s falls are more significantly associated with inpatient-related medical utilization. Comparing the impact of falls between men and women, the effect on inpatient utilization for males is larger than females; the effect of male falls on other medical expenditures and emergency department visits is obviously lower than the female’s.
According to these results, we can conclude that fallings among the elderly have increased various medical utilization, and fallings are indeed a major cause of increase in medical costs. Therefore, in order to reduce the medical expenditure and the economic burden of the country, the government should strengthen medical support measures and promote health education in prevention of falling.
Subjects
elderly
falls
risk factor
medical utilization
Negative Binomial Model
SDGs
Type
thesis
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