IAE 06-083
Women Veterans Ambulatory Care Use Project, Phase II
Donna L Washington, MD MPH VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, West Los Angeles, CA West Los Angeles, CA Funding Period: September 2006 - August 2009 Portfolio Assignment: Women's Health |
BACKGROUND/RATIONALE:
Women are a fast growing segment of the veteran population. However, their numerical minority within the VA, coupled with their gender-specific and often complex co-morbid health care needs, has created challenges to designing delivery systems that ensure their equitable access to high quality, gender-appropriate care. Little is known about how geographic barriers to VA use impacts women veterans' health services use, particularly for women veterans with chronic medical and mental health conditions. OBJECTIVE(S): Our objectives were to: (1) examine the influence of having chronic medical or mental health conditions on ambulatory care use, specific services used, and the presence of unmet health care need; (2) investigate the influence of distance to VA women's health and mental health services on VA use, for women veterans overall and by category of chronic conditions; and (3) investigate in a national sample gender differences in barriers to VA use. METHODS: We conducted statistical analyses of merged secondary data from existing data sources. The Women Veterans' Ambulatory Care Use dataset provided socio-demographic, health and ambulatory care use characteristics of 2,174 women veterans residing in southern California and southern Nevada. VA administrative data provided facility and clinical setting of VA use. The 2001 National Survey of Veterans provided national data on health care use by male and female veterans. Data were weighted to represent population estimates. FINDINGS/RESULTS: Women veterans had high levels of physical and mental health disease burden, with 66.5% having one or more diagnosed medical conditions, 32.2% having mental health conditions, 26.1% having both, and 27.4% having neither. Overall, 10.9% of respondents screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (26.0% of VA users, 9.7% of VA nonusers; p<0.0001). Among those screening positive, 27.3% used mental healthcare services in the prior 12 months. African-American and Hispanic veterans were less likely than Whites to receive mental healthcare. Screening positive for an anxiety disorder, being low income, using VA healthcare, and having a service-connected disability all predicted mental healthcare use. The median distance to the closest VA site was 8.5 miles (interquartile range 8.1). For 39.8% of women veterans, the nearest VA site did not offer mental health care, and for 58.7% the nearest VA site did not offer women's health care. Greater distance predicted use of women's health care outside of the VA for women veterans with mental health conditions and for those with no chronic conditions. Adjusting for age, chronic conditions, and VA priority group, for each 10 mile increase in distance to VA women's health services, the relative risk ratio favoring no use of women's health services versus VA use was 1.16 (95% C.I. 1.03-1.3), and the relative risk ratio favoring use of women's health services in non-VA settings was 1.15 (95% C.I. 1.1-1.2). IMPACT: Our findings reveal important geographic barriers to meeting women veterans' chronic illness care needs. Lack of close proximity to VA women's health services predicted use of women's health care outside of the VA, particularly among those with mental health comorbidity. Concentration of services at a limited number of sites also led to preferential VAMC over CBOC use. Next steps should identify strategies for assuring that designated primary care providers with appropriate women's health expertise are available in geographically dispersed VA sites. External Links for this ProjectDimensions for VADimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.Learn more about Dimensions for VA. VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address. Search Dimensions for this project PUBLICATIONS:Journal Articles
DRA:
Health Systems Science
DRE: none Keywords: Access, Utilization patterns, Women - or gender differences MeSH Terms: none |