Age and gender patterns in health service utilisation: Age-Period-Cohort modelling of linked health service usage records

Abstract

Background: Health service utilisation changes across the life-course and may be influenced by contextual factors at different times. There is some evidence that men engage less with preventive health services, including attending doctors’ clinics, however the extent to which this varies temporally and across different age groups is unclear. This study aimed to describe age or cohort effects on engagement with GPs among employed mothers and fathers in Australia, and differences in these trends between men and women. Methods: We linked data from the ‘Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children’ with administrative health service records from Medicare. We used a smal..