ArticleHealthcare policy = Politiques de sante2006
Experiencing difficulties accessing first-contact health services in Canada: Canadians without regular doctors and recent immigrants have difficulties accessing first-contact healthcare services. Reports of difficulties in accessing care vary by age, sex and region.
Article in Healthcare policy = Politiques de sante, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pharmacy-based immunization: a systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Barriers and Facilitators Affecting the HIV Care Cascade for Migrant People Living with HIV in Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development Countries: A Systematic Mixed Studies Review.AIDS patient care and STDs · 2021Pooled it
- Trial
- Impact of the Family Doctor Contracting System on unmet healthcare needs in Shandong Province, China.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Delay in Accessing and Receiving Primary Health Care and Associated Factors Among Nepalese Immigrant Patients in Canada.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Social and health determinants of wait times for primary care in Canada.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2025Article
- The behavioural and cognitive impacts of digital educational interventions in the emergency department: A systematic review.PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- The doctor will not see you now: investigating the social determinants of specialist care using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Unmet Primary Health Care Needs among Nepalese Immigrant Population in Canada.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
- Improved access to and continuity of primary care after attachment to a family physician: longitudinal cohort study on centralized waiting lists for unattached patients in Quebec, Canada.BMC primary care · 2022Observational
- COVID-19 Pandemic and Im/migrants' Elevated Health Concerns in Canada: Vaccine Hesitancy, Anticipated Stigma, and Risk Perception of Accessing Care.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2022Article
- Unmasking legislative constraints: An institutional ethnography of linkage and engagement in HIV healthcare for African, Caribbean, and Black people in Ontario, Canada.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Difficulties accessing health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada: examining the intersectionality between immigrant status and visible minority status.International journal for equity in health · 2021Article
- Within and across country variations in treatment of patients with heart failure and diabetes.Health services research · 2021Article
- Comparison of End-of-Life Care Between Recent Immigrants and Long-standing Residents in Ontario, Canada.JAMA network open · 2021Article
- Effect of socio-demographic and health factors on the association between multimorbidity and acute care service use: population-based survey linked to health administrative data.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Association Between Chronic Medical Conditions and Acute Perinatal Psychiatric Health-Care Encounters Among Migrants: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2020Article
- Factors affecting the self-rated health of immigrant women married to native men and raising children in South Korea: a cross-sectional study.BMC women's health · 2020Article
- Perceived barriers and primary care access experiences among immigrant Bangladeshi men in Canada.Family medicine and community health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this study, we identify the significant factors associated with having difficulties accessing first-contact healthcare services. Population-based data from two national health surveys, the Health Services Access Survey and the Canadian Community Health Survey, were used to identify respondents who required first-contact services for themselves or for a family member during 2003. Fifteen percent of Canadians reported difficulty accessing routine care, and 23% reported difficulties with immediate care. Physician/service availability was the chief reason cited for difficulties accessing routine care, while for urgent care, it was long wait times. Women, younger respondents and residents of eastern Canada and Quebec were consistently more likely to report difficulties accessing both types of these first-contact services, whereas less educated Canadians were less likely to report problems. Canadians without a regular family doctor were more than twice as likely to report difficulties accessing routine care compared to those who had a regular doctor. New immigrants were almost two and a half times more likely to report difficulties accessing immediate care than were Canadian-born respondents. Household income was not associated with difficulties accessing either type of care. The relatively low level of reporting of difficulties by older and less educated Canadians may be related, in part, to more modest expectations about the healthcare system.
Identifiers
19305660PMC2585333What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.