Chronic Illness, Subjective Wellbeing, and Health Services Availability: A Study of Older Adults in Australia

Abstract

Chronic illness is prevalent in older adults. While current scholarship has examined how various factors may be associated with the onset of chronic illnesses, fewer scholars have examined the role of health services availability. Drawing on a sample of older adults aged 50 and above from wave 16 of the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and geo-coded information of general practitioners (GPs) from the Australian Medical Directory, 2016, we investigated whether living in areas with a greater number of GPs is related to reports of living with a chronic illness. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find an association between the availability of health services and reports of chronic illnesses, though factors such as better socioeconomic status and better subjective wellbeing are related to lower likelihoods of reporting a chronic illness. We concluded that, while easy access to local health services may be important for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic illnesses, it is less persuasive to attribute the availability of health services to the likelihood of older adults reporting chronic illnesses without knowing how much or how often they use the services.