Social capital and preventive care use among the elderly under Taiwan's National Health Insurance

The National Health Insurance (NHI) system in Taiwan provides free annual preventive care services and other disease-specific preventive care services under low copayments to people aged 65 and older, yet their utilization rates remain low ever since implementation. This study investigates whether social capital is associated with preventive care use among people aged 65 and older.

Using the 2009 National Health Interview Study, this study measures social capital by the elderly's social network and social participation, and employs the logistic regressions to estimate the association between social capital and the odds of using a variety of preventive care services.

The results show that social capital in terms of social network and social participation is significantly associated with the use of NHI general preventive care services. For disease-specific preventive care, it is social participation, rather than social network, that is related to the utilization rate.

The associations between social capital and different types of preventive care use found in our study could be considered as an important factor when making policies to promote the utilization of preventive care.