| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 財政學系 === 103 === Background:
The purpose of preventive healthcare is to discover diseases or other factors which are harmful to our health as early as possible. It is possible to effectively reduce the prevalence and death rates of certain diseases, and their related medical costs, with the introduction of health education and intervention in the form of treatment. Therefore, the health of people can be further promoted. As previous research indicates, people with religious beliefs are more concerned about their health and use medical resources more frequently. Therefore, this study aims to explore the connection between religion and preventive healthcare in Taiwan.
Research Method:
The data used in this study are obtained from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for 2009. The hypotheses were tested using logistic regression. The research sample includes 8,565 men over 40 years old who have used adult preventive healthcare, 7,762 women over 30 years old who have undergone Pap-smear screening, and 3,747 women between the ages of 45 and 69 who have undergone mammography.
Results:
The empirical results show that religious believers are more likely to use adult preventive healthcare services, with there being a significantly increasing involvement in religious activities. People who are over 50 years old, women, non-smokers, and those with higher education and income are also more likely to participate in adult health examinations. However, the correlation between religion and Pap-smear screening is not significant. A negative relationship is found to exist between women who smoke and the number of women over the age of 60 who have undergone Pap-smear screening. The connection between religion and mammography is also not obvious. Women who are over 50 years old, are married, and with higher education are more likely to undergo a mammogram.
Conclusion:
Due to the fact that previous studies have neglected the individual socio-economic variable in their empirical analysis, their results are not so comprehensive. In order to amend this defect and present more refined results, this study takes the above factors into consideration, finding that religious people are more inclined to make use of adult preventive healthcare services in Taiwan. In addition, women who engage in religious activities are more likely to avail themselves of female preventive healthcare services.
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