Fei Men (
Craig Gundersen is an ACES Distinguished Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Urbana, Illinois.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 Aug;39(8):1377-1385. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2019.01637.
Food insecurity predicts poorer health, yet how it relates to health care use and costs in Canada remains understudied. Linking data from the Canadian Community Health Survey to hospital records and health care expenditure data, we examined the association of food insecurity with acute care hospitalization, same-day surgery, and acute care costs among Canadian adults, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Compared with fully food-secure adults, marginally, moderately, and severely food-insecure adults presented 26 percent, 41 percent, and 69 percent higher odds of acute care admission and 15 percent, 15 percent, and 24 percent higher odds of having same-day surgery, respectively. Conditional on acute care admission, food-insecure adults stayed from 1.48 to 2.08 more days in the hospital and incurred $400-$565 more per person-year in acute care costs than their food-secure counterparts, with this excess cost representing 4.4 percent of total acute care costs. Programs reducing food insecurity, such as child benefits and public pensions, and policies enhancing access to outpatient care may lower health care use and costs.
食物不安全会导致健康状况恶化，但在加拿大，食物不安全与医疗保健的使用和费用之间的关系仍研究不足。我们通过将加拿大社区健康调查的数据与医院记录和医疗保健支出数据相联系，调整了社会人口特征后，研究了食物不安全与加拿大成年人急性护理住院、当日手术和急性护理费用之间的关联。与完全食物安全的成年人相比，轻度、中度和重度食物不安全的成年人急性护理入院的可能性分别高出 26%、41%和 69%，当日手术的可能性分别高出 15%、15%和 24%。在考虑到急性护理入院的情况下，食物不安全的成年人在医院的住院时间比食物安全的成年人多 1.48 到 2.08 天，每人每年的急性护理费用多 400 到 565 美元，这部分超额费用占急性护理总费用的 4.4%。减少食物不安全的计划，如儿童福利和公共养老金，以及增加获得门诊护理的政策，可能会降低医疗保健的使用和费用。
