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Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging pp 1–5Cite as

Access to Care

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 470 Accesses

Synonyms

Access to health services; Access to healthcare; Health services utilization

Definition

The Institute of Medicine defines access to healthcare as “timely use of personal health services to achieve the best health outcomes” (1993, p. 33). Guided by this definition, Healthy People 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 10-year national objectives for improving the health of Americans, has proposed three components that make up access to care. These components are insurance coverage, usual source of services, and workforce availability (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion [ODPHP] 2016). In short, in order to have adequate access to care, an individual must be able to gain entry into the system by having health insurance, to obtain regular preventative and curative care in a timely and consistent manner, and to appropriate such services locally from qualified providers. The term “care” is broad-ranging; it includes health promotion, disease...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Susanny J. Beltran

Authors
  1. Susanny J. Beltran
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Correspondence to Susanny J. Beltran .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Population Division, UN Dept of Economic Social Affairs Population Division, New York, NY, USA

    Danan Gu

  2. Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA

    Matthew E. Dupre

Section Editor information

  1. Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Karen L. Fortuna

  2. Department of Economics, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Nazmi Sari

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Beltran, S.J. (2019). Access to Care. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_1096-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_1096-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

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