Availability and Perceived Adequacy of Health Services in Utah

Abstract

It is the general consensus that continuous and comprehensive health care of good quality should be available to all, under conditions that are convenient, comfortable, and not detrimental to the dignity or self-respect of the individual. This study concerns the adequacy of health services as perceived by persons living in rural, urban, and urbanizing-rural areas of Utah. It is also a study (1) to determine the degree to which various demographics found to be related to differential medical needs in metropolitan areas is related to perception of health services, and (2) to assess the congruence between empirical and perceived availability of health services among persons of varying age, sex, education, and other conditions generally related to the use of health services. The findings on perceived availability tend to more closely reflect the actual availability of health services than demographic background differences between urban and rural areas. The urbanizing-rural areas, however, do not reflect the actual availability of health services, as much as they do the improvement in availability of health services. Within both rural and urban areas and to a lesser degree within urbanizing-rural areas, health service delivery as perceived by different categories of the population appears to be quite equitable