A SURVEY OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH CONDITIONS OF HUNGARIAN PATIENTS ON THE BASIS OF HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS
Írta: Rendszergazda Dátum: 2011.10.05. 10:05:40
Our research has been aimed at finding a complex index number, which would eventually contribute to former research data by being able to describe regional and local differences in inhabitants’ health conditions. A significant requirement of such an indicator is its ability to characterise the regional or local inhabitants’ health conditions with a single number and also to describe in an integrated way the fullest possible spectrum of morbidity conditions. Such an index figure was to be discovered when analysing the patient statistics of various hospitals. Thus the main question of research methodology was to find out to what extent hospital statistics is suitable for describing the regional and local differences in inhabitants’ health conditions and how the pattern of results can be compared to other indicators, also used for describing health conditions.
The database, used in our research was made available by GYÓGYINFOK, and it contained all the data of hospital inpatients for 1998, systematised according to postal code. Having clarified and synchronised the given database in relation to each Hungarian settlement, the number of hospital admissions was then calculated per 100 inhabitants. After this phase the received data have been standardised, followed by the preparation of thematised maps and a number of mathematical and statistical analyses.
Having processed all available data, with the help of our thematised maps it became possible to establish the frequency of hospital admissions of the inhabitants of various Hungarian settlements, to analyse the differences in relation to settlement types and sizes, and eventually to extend the analysis to small regions and counties as well. The conclusions of these analyses were then compared with other health-condition related indicators and then this analysis allowed us to determine more accurately than before, the inhabitants of which Hungarian area, small region, county and settlement type are ’healthier’, or ’unhealthier’, compared with
people living elsewhere. Eventually some new questions were also raised, including these ans similar ones: what do health conditions depend on? How do the research results correlate with other indicators of the state of development of a region?