■ 学会名
ISPOR Europe 2024

■ 発表日
2024/11/17-20

■ 筆頭演者
Tomomi Takeshima
Milliman Inc.

■ 共同演者
Kosuke Iwasaki, Ayano Chida, Tianyi Zhang
Milliman Inc.

■ 発表形態
Poster

■ 要旨
In Japan, the healthcare system allows patients to access any medical facility without a referral. Given that health literacy (HL) reflects the ability to obtain, understand, and use health information, individuals with higher HL levels may be expected to select appropriate facilities depending on the disease diagnosed and thereby visit a greater number of healthcare facilities. This study investigated the association between HL level and the number of healthcare facilities visited in one year, using real-world data comprising HL questionnaire responses and health insurance claims provided by DeSC Healthcare Inc. Individuals covered by employee-based health insurance who responded to the HL questionnaire in December 2022 and were continuously enrolled during 2022 were included. Diagnoses were categorized using ICD-10 codes. HL level was defined as the first principal component from the questionnaire responses. A regression model was applied to assess associations with the number of healthcare facilities visited in 2022. Among 27,909 eligible individuals aged 20–74, a greater number of healthcare facilities was associated with female gender, lower age, number of disease categories, and log-transformed total medical costs (all p < 0.01). HL level was not significantly associated with the number of healthcare facilities visited (estimate: -0.00; p = 0.40).