Elderly population and health literacy: reflections on access and non-use of health services

Abstract

According to the United Nations World Population Prospect released in 2019, it is estimated that the total population of Brazil is approximately 210 million inhabitants. Of these, about 30 million correspond to the population over 60 years, representing, therefore, 14%. This fact allows us to note the considerable expansion of the elderly population over the last 70 years, since in the 1950s, the population over 60 years old represented only 4.9% of the total population.

By situating this population dynamic that involves the increase in life expectancy of Brazilians and, consequently, of its elderly population, it is necessary to reflect on the access and use of the health system by this population stratum.

Without intending to seek to deepen the intimate relationship between comprehensive care and the availability of services, it is worth remembering that the first has an enormous scope, including the need to understand and assimilate the expanded concept of health, the organizational model ofthe health system and the development of health policies that will have a direct influence on the daily lives of the population.

This work emerges as an excerpt from the master's dissertation in which the causes ofabsenteeism from users to health services were investigated, but for the general public. Therefore, now, the results of that dissertation will be analyzed from the interviewed participants who were over sixty years old, which comprises ten of the twenty-six users who had not attended the scheduled appointments.

When seeking to understand the use of health services, as well as their "non-use" (absenteeism of users to health services) and the causes of this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand the ways in which the conditions of access to services occur and so make a connection between this clear contradiction between the resources offered and their non-use.

Some factors that have a direct interference in the access to health services in an adequate and timely manner are considered in this investigation, such as the availability of services, the financial resources involved, the level of information of this public and its acceptability about the different events that make up the production of care.

The results show a need to carefully assess thedimensions of health literacy in order to intervene effectively and give the respective empowerment and control to people and communities that, both due to low educational level and advanced age, may have lower levels health literacy and, consequently, bemore vulnerable in relation to their health status.