Analysis of diverse factors influencing the health status as well as medical and health service utilization in the floating elderly of China

BACKGROUND: Based on the “China Migrants Dynamic Survey-Special investigation on Floating Elderly in 8 megacities in 2015”, the health status and the utilization of medical and health services in floating elderly were described and analyzed. OBJECTIVE: Scientific basis and critical suggestions are provided for improving the utilization level of medical and health services in the floating elderly and designing targeted health policies to improve their well-being. METHODS: The rank-sum test and Pearson χ(2) test were used to compare the health status of floating elderly with different characteristics. Thereafter based on Andersen model, floating characteristics were added and binary logistic regression was used to explore the influencing factors of medical and health service utilization in the floating elderly. RESULTS: About 94.7% of the floating elderly were self-assessed as healthy/basically healthy. About 24.2% had hypertension or diabetes as diagnosed by the qualified doctors. About 7% suffered from diseases that required hospitalization. Only 28.6% of the floating elderly with hypertension or diabetes had visited a doctor for follow-up. In the case of minor ailments, only 48.7% decided to visit the clinics. Approximately 70.7% of the floating elderly had used in-patient services when they suffered from diseases requiring hospitalization. CONCLUSION: The floating elderly were observed to be generally in good health but a high prevalence of hypertension or diabetes was observed among them. The cultivation of health awareness was found to be of great significance contributing to the improvement of the overall health level among the floating elderly. The basic medical insurance coverage was low, and the medical and health services were found to be severely underutilized. Adequate social support can promote the health of the floating elderly and improve their utilization of medical and health services. The floating reasons, scope and years of the elderly significantly affected their health status and the utilization rate of the basic public health services.