Factors Influencing Access to Health Care for Families

In response to the pressing need for eliminating health disparities, improving access to care in the United States has been a critical policy issue since the early 1980s. Numerous studies about the differential health service accessibility and utilization have contributed to the development of conceptual frameworks identifying the individual and societal determinants of access to care. The behavioral system model of health services use, initially developed by Ronald M. Andersen to study factors affecting health services utilization for families, encompasses three core components: predisposing factors, enabling factors, and need-for-care factors. Similarly, this framework is helpful for classifying pertinent factors that influence the variation in access to health care for families. This entry discusses this framework, the core components' effects on health care access, and reforms ...