Access to care is defined for an individual or population as the ability to obtain preventive, primary, and tertiary healthcare as needed for optimal health. The US Institute of Medicine Committee on Monitoring Access to medical care defined access as: the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes. Access to care is measured through population surveys or statistical data that relate actual healthcare use to various need and other personal, health system, and environmental factors that tend to reduce or enhance healthcare seeking behavior.
In understanding access to healthcare and social services, it is useful to consider the variety of different predisposing, enabling, and need factors that act independently and together to influence patterns of use and outcomes. Predisposing factors include environmental and patient characteristics such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education, occupation, environmental risk factors, and...
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Suggested Readings
Andersen, R. M. (1995). Revisiting the behavioral model and access to medical care: Does it matter? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36, 1–10.
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Suggested Resources
Center for American Progress, Washington, DC
Center for Communmity Health Studies, University of Southern California, Washington, DC
Kaiser Family Foundation, Washington, DC
Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC
Pan-American Health Organization (Organización Panamericana de la Salud), Washington, DC
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Begley, C.E. (2012). Access to Care. In: Loue, S., Sajatovic, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Immigrant Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5659-0_10
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