disease-wide accessibility of the elderly in primary care setting the relationship between geographic accessibility and utilization of outpatient services in tokushima prefecture, japandisease-wide易访问性的老年人在初级保健设置门诊服务的地理可及性和利用率之间的关系在德岛县,日本.pdfVIP

Vol.4, No.6, 320-326 (2012) Health /10.4236/health.2012.46053 Disease-wide accessibility of the elderly in primary care setting: The relationship between geographic accessibility and utilization of outpatient services in Tokushima prefecture, Japan 1* 2 3 4 2 Yoshimi Tsuji , Tomohiro Hirao , Ai Fujikawa , Yoichi Hoshikawa , Akira Yoshioka , Takeshi Yoda2, Takeshi Suzue2 1Department of Nursing, Kagawa Prefecture College of Health Sciences, Kagawa, Japan; * Corresponding Author: tsuji@chs.pref.kagawa.jp 2Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Kagawa University, Kagawa, Japan 3Takamatsu City Public Health Center, Kagawa, Japan 4Kagawa Prefectural Government, Kagawa, Japan Received 8 March 2012; revised 1 April 2012; accepted 18 April 2012 ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION In Japan, a rapid pace of aging coupled with the Aging is an issue that all developed countries are fac- lower birth rates causes the decrease of the ing. In Japan, a rapid pace of aging coupled with the population especially in rural area, which leads lower birth rates causes the decrease of the population to the problems with the delivery of healthcare especially in rural area, which leads to the problems with services. We investigated the relationship be- the delivery of social services [1-3]. Healthcare is one of tween the geographical accessibility (time and the important social services which influence on the distance) and the utilization rate of outpatient well-being of the people. I