Delivery of cardio-metabolic preventive services to Hungarian Roma of different socio-economic strata.

BACKGROUND

Because the cardiovascular mortality in Hungary is high, particularly among the socio-economically deprived and the Roma, it is implied that primary health care (PHC) has a limited ability to exploit the opportunities of evidence-based preventions, and it may contribute to social health inequalities.

OBJECTIVES

Our study investigated the underuse of PHC preventive services.

METHODS

Random samples of adults aged 21-64 years free of hypertension and diabetes mellitus were surveyed with participation rate of 97.7% in a cross-sectional study. Data from 2199 adults were collected on socio-demographic status, ethnicity, lifestyle and history of cardio-metabolic preventive service use. Delivery rates were calculated for those aged 21-44 years and those aged 45-64 years, and the influence of socio-demographic variables was determined using multivariate logistic regression.

RESULTS

Delivery rates varied between 12.79% and 99.06%, and the majority was far from 100%. Although most preventive service use was independent of education, younger participants with vocational educations underutilized problematic drinking (P = 0.011) and smoking (P = 0.027) assessments, and primary or less educated underutilized blood glucose (P = 0.001) and serum cholesterol (P = 0.005) checks. Health care measures of each lifestyle assessment (P = 0.032; P = 0.021; P = 0.029) and waist circumference measurement (P = 0.047) were much less frequently used among older Roma. The blood glucose check (P = 0.001) and family history assessment (P = 0.043) were less utilized among Roma.

CONCLUSIONS

The Hungarian PHC underutilizes the cardio-metabolic prevention contributing to the avoidable mortality, not generating considerably health inequalities by level of education, but contributing to the bad health status among the Roma.