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The Relationship Between Life Satisfaction and Healthcare Utilization: A Longitudinal Study
Vivek Goel1, Laura C Rosella2, Longdi Fu3
1Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine
|May 22, 2018
Summary
Low life satisfaction is linked to significantly higher future healthcare utilization and costs. This finding highlights the importance of well-being in predicting healthcare expenses.
Area of Science:
- Health Economics
- Psychology
- Public Health
Background:
- Life satisfaction, or happiness, is recognized for its impact on health outcomes.
- Prospective studies linking life satisfaction to healthcare utilization and costs are limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the prospective relationship between life satisfaction and future healthcare utilization and costs.
- To quantify the association between life dissatisfaction and high healthcare expenditure.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from three national survey cycles (2005-2010) to track healthcare utilization up to 2015.
- Calculated annual per person costs and ranked individuals.
- Employed adjusted multinomial logistic regression to analyze the association between life satisfaction levels and healthcare cost/utilization categories.
Main Results:
- Analysis included 85,225 adults, revealing increasing life dissatisfaction correlates with higher healthcare utilization and costs.
- Individuals with the lowest life satisfaction had 3.05 times higher odds of being in the top 5% of healthcare costs and 2.24 times higher odds of being in the middle utilization category.
- Significant trends (p<0.001) indicated increasing dissatisfaction was associated with escalating healthcare utilization and costs.
Conclusions:
- Life dissatisfaction is a significant predictor of future high-cost healthcare users.
- The association remains robust even after adjusting for demographic, comorbidity, socioeconomic, and behavioral factors.
- Broader correlates of well-being, such as life satisfaction, are crucial for understanding and potentially managing future healthcare utilization and costs.
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