Preventive care utilization: Association with individual- and workgroup-level policy and practice perceptions

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Prev Med
• Personal Author:
  Sabbath, Erika L. ; Sparer, Emily H. ; Boden, Leslie I. ; Wagner, Gregory R. ; Hashimoto, Dean M. ; Hopcia, Karen ; Sorensen, Glorian
• Description:
  Preventive medical care may reduce downstream medical costs and reduce population burden of disease. However, although social, demographic, and geographic determinants of preventive care have been studied, there is little information about how the workplace affects preventive care utilization. This study examines how four types of organizational policies and practices (OPPs) are associated with individual workers' preventive care utilization. We used data collected in 2012 from 838 hospital patient care workers, grouped in 84 patient care units at two hospitals in Boston. Via survey, we assessed individuals' perceptions of four types of OPPs on their work units. We linked the survey data to a database containing detailed information on medical expenditures. Using multilevel models, we tested whether individual-level perceptions, workgroup-average perceptions, and their combination were associated with individual workers' preventive care utilization (measured by number of preventive care encounters over a two-year period). Adjusting for worker characteristics, higher individual-level perceptions of workplace flexibility were associated with greater preventive care utilization. Higher average unit-level perceptions of people-oriented culture, ergonomic practices, and flexibility were associated with greater preventive care utilization. Overall, we find that workplace policies and practices supporting flexibility, ergonomics, and people-oriented culture are associated with positive preventive care-seeking behavior among workers, with some policies and practices operating at the individual level and some at the group level. Improving the work environment could impact employers' health-related expenditures and improve workers' health-related quality of life.
• Keywords:
  Adult Boston Female Health Care Utilization Humans Middle Aged Organizational Culture Organizational Policies Organizational Policy Patient Acceptance Of Health Care Perception Preventive Health Care Preventive Medicine Psychology Psychosocial Factors Quality Of Life Surveys And Questionnaires Workplace

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• Source:
  Prev Med. 111:235-240
• Pubmed ID:
  29567439
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6028933
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  K01 OH010673/OH/NIOSH CDC HHSUnited States/ ; R25 CA057711/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U19 OH008861/OH/NIOSH CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  111
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:4072705f5a2c6826a11a7ec93b8b5cb1df1d4771e652f975c387d43e3286771c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/56651/cdc_56651_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 320.65 KB ]