(Geo)Demographic Aspects of Availability of Health Services: The Case of Diabetology in Czechia

Katerina Maláková , Charles University, Prague
Ludek Šídlo, Charles University, Prague

Health services are one of the most important public services of every society. Therefore, the quality and availability of health services belong to the most important long-term goals of not only developed countries. Availability of health services is influenced by many factors, like biological, lifestyle, socio-economic factors, cultural and environmental conditions, the health service system and the actual utilization of health services. This paper focuses on differences in the use of selected health services (outpatient diabetology) from a demographic and geographical perspective. The main aim is to analyse and describe distribution of patients with diabetes and utilization of health services in districts (LAU1) in Czechia. The research concerns with several determinants, especially gender, age, residence of the patients. The analyses were based on sorted anonymized data for year 2017 which were obtained from the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) and the General Health Insurance Company of the Czech Republic (GHIC CR). It was found that diabetes effected mainly older generations but there were also significant differences in gender and age groups of patients. There was applied information on the patient's permanent residence, which were used for illustrating of geographical aspect of this issue. The distribution of patients and providers of health services is considerably uneven in the space. There were regional differences in both the age structure of patients and distribution of health services such as in utilization of these services.

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 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality