Clinical research studyPreventive Health Care among Older Women: Missed Opportunities and Poor Targeting
Section snippets
Data Source
We used the 2005 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a continuing, in-person household survey of the civilian, non-institutionalized US population, conducted by the Census Bureau for the National Center for Health Statistics.12 The NHIS collects information from a nationally representative sample including sociodemographic factors, functional status, insurance coverage, and access to health care for all household members. One randomly selected adult from each responding family is asked to
Results
Of the 4683 women in our study, 30.3% were aged 65-69 years, 23.9% were aged 70-74 years, 20.0% were aged 75-79 years, 15.6% were aged 80-84 years, and 10.2% were aged 85 years or older; the majority (81.8%) were non-Hispanic white. Ten percent had only seen their clinician once within the past year and this varied slightly by age (12.1% of women aged 65-79 years vs. 7.6% of women aged 85 years and older). With respect to health status, 21.3% were in above-average health, 58.3% were in average
Discussion
Our findings indicate that older women are not receiving the preventive health measures most likely to be effective based on their age and health status. Cancer screening was not targeted to women aged 80 years and older in above-average health even though many of these women have more than 5 years of life expectancy.3 Meanwhile, many women (49%) aged 80 years and older in below-average health were screened with mammography. We also found that many older women did not receive recommended
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This research was conducted while Dr. Mara Schonberg was supported by a Hartford Geriatrics Health Outcomes Research Scholars Award from the AGS Foundation for Health in Aging.