Sociodemographic inequality in joint‐pain medication use among community‐dwelling older adults in Israel

Abstract

Joint pain is a common experience among adults aged 65 and over. Although pain management is multifaceted, medication is essential in it. The paper examines the use of medication among older adults with joint pain in Israel and asks whether socioeconomic factors are associated with this usage. The data, harvested, from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), include 1,294 randomly selected community‐dwelling individuals aged 65 and over in Israel. Bivariate analysis and logistic regression are used to identify factors associated with the presence of joint pain medication use. About 38% of respondents report experiencing joint pain and 45% of those who so report are not taking prescription medication. Back pain is the most common location, reported by 64% of individuals who report joint pain. Taking medication is independently associated with younger age (OR = 0.965, 95% CI = 0.939–0.991), more education (OR = 1.044, 95% CI = 0.998–1.091), and better ability to cope economically (OR = 1.964, 95% CI = 1.314–2.936). However, older age and ability to cope economically are independently associated with women (OR = 0.964, 95% CI = 0.932–0.998 and OR = 2.438, 95% CI = 1.474–4.032, respectively) but not with men. It is suggested that socioeconomic inequality exists in healthcare access among adults aged 65 and over. Since income and gender are strongly associated with taking pain medication, physicians should follow‐up on women and less affluent people to ensure that medication prescribed has been obtained. Policymakers should consider programs that would facilitate better access to pain medication among vulnerable older individuals.

Out‐of‐pocket spending of deceased cancer patients in five European countries and Israel

“…The study employs a quantitative approach, using data from the second, fourth and fifth ‘waves’ of SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe), conducted between 2006 and 2013 among people aged 50+ in 13 European countries and in Israel. SHARE was established as a longitudinal study meant to shed light on the changing demographic, health and economic trends in Europe (Achdut et al, (2015); Katz et al, 2015; Tur‐Sinai & Litwin, 2015; Lowenstein et al, 2019; Tur‐Sinai et al, 2019b). Within this ambit, men and women aged 50+ as well as their spouses were interviewed (Axelrad & Tur‐Sinai, 2020; Shuldiner et al, 2020; Silverstein et al, 2020; Tur‐Sinai et al, 2019a; Tur‐Sinai & Lewin‐Epstein, 2020).…”

Impact of the Outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Formal and Informal Care of Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Cross-National Clustering of Empirical Evidence from 23 Countries

“…This study draws on data collected by the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which seeks to better understand the dynamics of the growing population of persons aged 50+ and to provide a research infrastructure for public policymaking on behalf of the older-adult population [35]. The data collected in SHARE make it possible to compare the health, economic situation, and welfare of older adults in 29 European countries over time by providing a multidisciplinary cross-national bank of microdata on health, psychological, and economic variables [36][37][38].…”

Socioeconomic status and health behaviors as predictors of changes in self‐rated health among older persons in Israel

“…Israel is among the countries with lowest proportion of the aged population among developed countries; 11 percent of the population is aged sixty-five or older (Tur-Sinai et al, 2019) and life expectancy at birth is high, men ranking fourth worldwide and women ninth in 2015 (Dwolatzky et al, 2017). The Israeli population of 9.0 million people (CBS, 2019a) is comprised of diverse ethnic groups, each characterised by unique cultural and social patterns (Clarfield et al, 2017).…”

“…• The findings may motivate healthcare policy-makers to discuss perceptions of health with patients and be attentive to patients who judge their health to be or become poor. (Clarfield et al, 2017;Tur-Sinai, et al, 2019), inequalities by gender, population group, and socioeconomic status in morbidity and mortality persist, including inequalities in SRH (CBS, 2019b). However, it has been demonstrated that the association of lower socioeconomic status (Daoud et al, 2009;Soskolne & Manor, 2010) or Arab population group (Benyamini et al, 2014) with poorer SRH is reduced or eliminated when psychosocial (e.g., mastery, depressive mood, social capital) and health behaviours factors are accounted for.…”

“…SHARE is a cross-national panel database that includes information on a wide range of variables from socioeconomic, social environment and physical functioning, to health and health behaviours among persons aged fifty or older in the first study period (Axelrad & Tur-Sinai, 2020;Shuldiner et al, 2020;Silverstein et al, 2020;Weber, 2018). The data collected in SHARE offer a unique means by which to compare the health, economic situation and welfare of older people in different European countries over time (Ben-David et al, 2016;Börsch-Supan et al, 2013;Katz et al, 2015;Tur-Sinai et al, 2019).…”