Wakeel Fathima, Jia Haiyan, He Lifang, Shehadeh Karmel S, Napper Lucy E
Department of Community and Population Health, College of Health, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA.
Department of Journalism & Communication, College of Arts and Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA.
Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Jan 26;11(3):354. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11030354.
Research on access to health services during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited, and the conceptualization of access has not typically included access to community resources. We developed and tested an access-to-health-services measure and examined disparities in access among individuals in the U.S. during the pandemic. Data are from a U.S. sample of 1491 respondents who completed an online survey in August 2021. Linear regression models assessed the relationships between the access-to-health-services-measure components, including impact on access to medicine and medical equipment, impact on access to healthcare visits, and confidence in accessing community resources, and predictor variables, including sociodemographic- and health-related factors. Disparities in access to healthcare during the pandemic were associated with sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age) and health-related characteristics (i.e., chronic illness, mental health condition, and disability). Factors such as race, gender, income, and age were associated with individuals' degree of confidence in accessing community services. Our study presents a new access-to-health-services measure, sheds light on which populations may be most vulnerable to experiencing reduced access to health services, and informs the development of programmatic interventions to address the salient needs of these populations.
关于新冠疫情期间获得医疗服务的研究有限，而且获得医疗服务的概念通常不包括获得社区资源。我们开发并测试了一种衡量获得医疗服务情况的方法，并研究了疫情期间美国个体在获得医疗服务方面的差异。数据来自于2021年8月完成在线调查的1491名美国受访者样本。线性回归模型评估了衡量获得医疗服务情况的各组成部分之间的关系，包括对获得药品和医疗设备的影响、对获得医疗就诊机会的影响以及获得社区资源的信心，以及预测变量，包括社会人口统计学和健康相关因素。疫情期间获得医疗服务的差异与社会人口统计学特征（即种族、性别和年龄）以及健康相关特征（即慢性病、心理健康状况和残疾）有关。种族、性别、收入和年龄等因素与个体获得社区服务的信心程度有关。我们的研究提出了一种新的衡量获得医疗服务情况的方法，揭示了哪些人群可能最容易面临获得医疗服务减少的风险，并为制定针对这些人群突出需求的项目干预措施提供了参考。
