Oral

This session (1) researches barriers to the timely delivery of health care services, particularly the provision of preventive and primary care services to disadvantaged populations of women, and (2) identifies strategies to facilitate women’s access to care at the policy/program and point-of-service levels. The papers cover a range of primary care services, such as family planning and cancer screening, and examine gender differences, where appropriate. The authors report that barriers to preventive care are multidimensional and exist at the patient, provider, and healthcare system levels. Such barriers include program eligibility requirements, lack of community awareness of the value of preventive care, patient anxiety and preferences, provider time constraints, communication and transportation barriers, lack of office systems to support the delivery of care, and the fragmentation in women’s health care. The authors find that policy interventions to expand access to care (e.g., Arkansas’ Medicaid Family Planning Expansion) and to improve service delivery (e.g. improvements to services for Military Sexual Trauma within the Veteran’s Health Administration) can achieve positive outcomes, for example, in terms of reducing unwanted births and enhancing patients’ perceptions of the quality of outpatient care, respectively. Low-income and minority populations continue to experience a disproportionate share of barriers to access to care and consequently poorer health outcomes. Gender-differences in disease management persist, and health knowledge/information alone may not explain observed gender differences.

Session Objectives: 1. Describe barriers – at the patient, provider, and healthcare system levels -- to the timely delivery of preventive and primary care services among disadvantaged populations of women. 2. Identify strategies that may enhance access to and utilization of preventive healthcare services in vulnerable populations of women. 3. Analyze gender-based differences in management and outcomes of common acute conditions.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)