How Age Influences the Demand for Health Care in Latin America
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Table 4.4 Percentage of People with Perceived Health Needs as a Share of Total Population, Richest Quintile, 1997–99 Men (%) Country Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador El Salvador Jamaica Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru
Women (%)
Childhood
Youth/adult
Aging
Childhood
Youth/adult
Aging
38 7 35 31 18 43 42 16 30 35 64 27
18 12 17 16 20 35 19 6 29 25 22 22
27 43 19 25 31 47 26 20 46 29 23 26
32 16 29 29 22 48 42 15 37 39 57 28
21 12 17 21 21 46 22 8 34 39 28 22
44 48 31 43 35 60 32 33 63 42 36 30
Source: MECOVI Household Surveys 1997–99.
The data for the 12 countries included in tables 4.3 and 4.4 show that perceived health needs vary widely within and among age groups and among income quintiles. Among children, perceived health needs vary from 7 percent in boys (Bolivia’s richest quintile) to 71 percent in boys (Paraguay’s poorest quintile); among youth/adults, from 3 percent in men (Jamaica’s poorest quintile) to 51 percent in women (Ecuador’s poorest quintile), and among the aging, from 19 percent in men (Colombia’s poorest quintile and Brazil’s richest quintile) to 68 percent in women (Ecuador’s poorest quintile). Figure 4.17 displays perceived health needs according to age, gender, and income quintile. As can be seen, perceived health needs increase from adulthood to aging in all 12 countries, in both genders and in the poorest and richest quintiles, except for men in Peru. Figure 4.18 shows that perceived health needs are higher for youth/adults and seniors in the poorest quintile compared to the richest, but not among children where, in many cases, children’s perceived health needs in the richest quintile are higher than in the poorest quintile, probably because the poorest mothers have less information with which to diagnose problems in their children’s health status than the richest mothers. Poor families need assistance from health services, such as health agents or household visitors, family doctors, and other professionals in order to increase their health information and allow them to better diagnose health problems among children.