Perception of health and access to health care in the EU-25 in 2007

European Commission Eurostat

Description

Population and social conditions
Target audience: Specialised/Technical

Sujets

• Medical statistics
• Population statistics
• Social theory
• Illness
• Comparison
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-EUROSTAT
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English

Extrait

Population and social conditions Authors: Katrien BAERT, Bart DE NORRE

S t a t i s t i c s i n F o c u s 24/2009

Perception of health and access to health care in the EU25 in 2007 Generally European citizens are satisfied about waiting list or the person could not take time for their health; only about 10% claim to be in bad or it. There are large differences between the very bad health in 2007. There are large countries concerning the proportion of differences in the reporting of general health respondents claiming to have had unmet between European countries, but "cultural medical needs and the reasons they give for it. differences" should be taken into account. A large part of the respondents claiming that their health is bad or very bad (95%) suffer from a chronic 66% of EU25 population perceive their (longstanding) illness or condition and/or are general health as good or very good limited in their daily activities. Older people are The measurement of selfperceived health is, by much more likely to report worse health as are definition, subjective. The reference is to health in people not in the labour market at the time of the general rather than to the current state of health. It is survey . expected to include the different dimensions of A person's health depends on certain inherent health, i.e. physical, social and emotional function factors and life style, but also on the extent to and biomedical signs and symptoms. which they seek and receive the care they need. 10% of the EU25 population report bad or very bad Of the European citizens 6.4% felt that they had general health and 24% of the respondents claim to be unmet medical needs in examination or in fair health. treatment during the twelve months preceding the interview. The main reasons for this are that The gender difference in reporting of health is not is was too expensive, the person wanted to wait very large, but more women than men report worse and see if the problem got better, there was a health and conversely more men than women claim to be in good or very good health.

Figure 1: Selfperceived health by gender, % of respondents

Source: Eurostat, EUSILC 2007