EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT UTILIZATION, HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS, AND PHYSICIAN VISITS AMONG ELDERLY AFRICAN-AMERICAN PERSONS

This study uses a theoretical model of health services utilization to examine (a) emergency department utilization, (b) hospital admissions, and (c) office-based physician visits among a sample of 998 low-incom e elderly African American persons. Poisson Regression analysis was us ed to estimate the parameters specified in the Andersen behavioral mod el. Some of the more interesting results include the following: (a) a greater frequency of emergency room visits among respondents with a lo wer level of accessibility to physician services, (b) a lack of a sign ificant relationship between some chronic illnesses such as diabetes a nd heart problems and the frequency of office-based physician visits, (c) a greater number of hospital admissions among insured persons, and (d) a significant impact of the health locus of control indexes on al l three types of health care utilization. The results of this study ch allenge the assumption that hospital and emergency use are the results of nondiscretionary behavior.