New
Study Profiles Women’s Use of Health Care Women more
likely than men to visit the doctor, more likely to have annual exams
For Release
Wednesday, July 26, 2001
Contact: NCHS Press Office
(301) 458-4800
CDC Office of Media Relations (404) 639-3286
E-mail: paoquery@cdc.gov
Utilization of
Ambulatory Medical Care by Women: United States, 1997-98. Series
Report 13, No. 149. 51 pp. (PHS) 2001-1720. View/download PDF
1.7 MB
A new report from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines women’s use of
ambulatory medical care in 1997 and 1998 and finds that in many
significant ways their care differs from men. Even excluding
pregnancy-related visits, women were 33 percent more likely than men to
visit a doctor, although this difference decreased with age. The rate of
doctor visits for such reasons as annual examinations and preventive
services was 100 percent higher for women than for men and medication
patterns differed significantly. Women were not only more likely to
receive hormones, but also dramatically more likely to have an
antidepressant prescribed.
"Any effort to
improve the health and well being of our families must have women's health
as a vital component," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G.
Thompson said. "In order to fully deal with any health problem, we
have to look at how it affects everyone who suffers from it - not just one
gender, race or ethnic group, but all of us."
"Utilization of
Ambulatory Medical Care by Women: United States, 1997-98" from CDC’s
National Center for Health Statistics, describes the 500 million
ambulatory medical care visits to doctors’ offices and hospital
outpatient and emergency departments made each year by women 15 years of
age and older. The report covers patient characteristics such as age, race
and insurance coverage and health care provider characteristics, including
place and type of care.
"It’s important
to understand the way women use health care in America," said Yvonne
Green, Director of CDC’s Office of Women’s Health, "so that
health care providers can be prepared and programs developed to meet women’s
special health care needs."
Among the highlights of
the report:
On
average, women made about 4.6 visits a year in 1997-98, ranging from 3.8
for those 15-44 to about double that for those 65 and older.
Visits
by younger women were more likely to be to primary care physicians and
emergency departments while older women were more likely to see
specialists.
Compared
with white women, black women had higher rates of visits for hypertension,
complications of pregnancy, and diabetes.
More
than four out of five ambulatory medical care visits were made to
office-based physicians; the rest were about equally divided between
hospital outpatient and emergency departments.
The
most common diagnostic or screening service for women was blood pressure
screening performed in over half of all visits. Pelvic exams were
performed during about 14 percent of the visits and urinalysis in about
the same number of visits. The rate of mammography was about 29 percent
lower for women 65 and over than for women 45-64 years of age.
Among
the major classes of drugs, those most frequently prescribed for women
were for the cardiovascular-renal and central nervous systems, as well as
hormones. The specific therapeutic classes most frequently prescribed were
nonnarcotic analgesics, antidepressants, and estrogen/progestin.
The
most frequent sources of payment for ambulatory care visits by women were
private insurance (50 percent), Medicare (22 percent), and Medicaid (9
percent). The proportion of visits covered by private insurance was 1.3
times as high among white women as among black women. In contrast, the
proportion of ambulatory visits by black women covered by Medicaid was
more than three times as high as the proportion of Medicaid visits by
white women.
CDC
conducts annual surveys of physician visits to office-based practices and
to hospital outpatient and emergency departments, as part of its National
Health Care Survey which also covers hospitals, nursing homes, hospices
and home health care. For more information about the survey and to view or
download the report visit the CDC Website.
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