지역 의료불평등 해소를 위한 미충족 의료지표 활용의 비판적 분석

• Published in: Health policy and management Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 37 - 49
• Main Authors: 박유경, Yukyung Park, 김진환, Jin-hwan Kim, 김선, Sun Kim, 김창엽, Chang-yup Kim, 한주성, Joo-sung Han, 김새롬, Saerom Kim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 한국보건행정학회 31.03.2020
• Subjects: Healthcare needs; Inequalities of perception; met healthcare needs; Regional healthcare inequalities; 예방의학; Regional healthcare inequalities; Unmet healthcare needs; Healthcare needs; Inequalities of perception
• ISSN: 1225-4266; 2289-0149

Background: Unmet healthcare needs have many advantages for measuring inequalities in healthcare use. However, the existing indicator is difficult to capture the reality of unmet healthcare needs sufficiently and is not quite appropriate in comparing regional inequality. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the utilization of the unmet healthcare need indicator for regional healthcare inequalities research. Methods: We used the level of healthcare accessibility and healthcare need to categorize the regions that are known to cause differences in healthcare utilization between regions and verified how existing unmet healthcare need indicator is distributed at the regional level. Results: Four types of regions were classified according to the high and low levels of healthcare needs and accessibility. The hypothesis about the regional type expected to have the highest unmet healthcare need was not proved. The hypothesis about the lowest expected regional type was proved, but the difference in the average rate of unmet healthcare needs among regional types was not significant. The standard deviation of the rate of unmet healthcare needs among regions within the same type was also higher than the overall regional variation, which also disproved the whole frame of hypothesis. Conclusion: Failure to prove the hypothesis means the gap between the supposed meaning of the indicator and the reality. In order to understand the current state of healthcare utilization of people in various regions of Korea and to resolve inequality, fundamental research on the in-depth structure and mechanisms of healthcare utilization is needed.