Equity in health care: methodological contributions to the analysis of hospital utilization within Canada

The main objective of this paper is to determine whether the distribution of hospital service utilization corresponds to the distribution of needs within Canada. This is accomplished by identifying the factors affecting the relationship between the incidence and quantity of hospital services and self-assessed need for such care in Canada. The data were derived from the General Social Survey (Statistics Canada, 1987) which is a weighted random sample of the Canadian population aged 15 and over. Employing methodological extensions over previous studies, the results indicate that although variation in quantity of hospital use is largely independent of income, household income has a significant positive effect on the incidence of hospital utilization. Additionally, variations in both incidence and quantity of use of hospital services are associated with variations in need and other factors within the model.