【Health and Welfare News】 As the sense of crisis about local extinction grows day by day, it has been confirmed that seniors living in areas with declining population feel ‘uncomfortable’ with the medical and public transportation infrastructure in their areas.
Professor Sunyoung Lee and Research Professor Youngjun Joo from the Department of Preventive Medicine at Ajou University School of Medicine surveyed 58,568 people aged 65 or older living in areas with population decline designated by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and examined whether they live in areas with population decline and whether they live in areas with population decline and medical and medical services through data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s Community Health Survey (2021). Satisfaction with public transportation infrastructure was analyzed.
In Korea, many local cities are currently facing a crisis of population decline due to the concentration in the metropolitan area due to low birth rate and aging population.
Looking at the characteristics of these local cities at risk of population decline, most of them are rural areas and have a high distribution of elderly population.
The research team explained that the higher the distribution of the elderly population, the greater the need for continuous and appropriate chronic disease management, but in most areas with declining populations, access to medical services is not easy due to lack of medical infrastructure and poor public transportation.
In fact, in this study, the odds of being dissatisfied with the medical infrastructure in the area of residence were 1.76 times higher for the population living in areas with population decline, and the odds of being dissatisfied with public transportation infrastructure being 1.67 times significantly higher than those not living in areas with population decline. It was higher.
Professor Joo Young-jun said, “Medical and public transportation infrastructure in residential areas are important factors for local residents to use appropriate medical services.” He added, “The elderly population over 65 years old in areas with population decline has less access to medical care and medical services in the community compared to the population living in areas not at risk of population decline.” “We confirmed that there was great dissatisfaction with public transportation infrastructure,” he said.
Professor Soonyoung Lee said, “The gap in infrastructure between regions can worsen the health gap between residents in rural and urban areas or become a major obstacle to health management, especially for the elderly population who need chronic disease management.”
Accordingly, he added, “Before it is too late, we must examine the factors that impede access to medical care and various services in areas with declining populations and seek ways to resolve health inequalities between regions.”
This study was published in the latest issue of the international academic journal ‘BMC Public Health‘ titled ‘Association between residing in municipalities facing population decline and satisfaction with neighboring healthcare infrastructure in older aged adults’. It was published under the title ‘
Meanwhile, this research was conducted as a project supported by the Sejong Science Fellowship from the Ministry of Science and ICT.
