Assessing the effects of demographic and non-demographic factors on healthcare utilization in ageing population in low-middle income country: a case of Indonesia

The ageing of population is often associated with strain of health system due to increasing healthcare utilization among elderly. The extent to which demographic mingles with non-demographic factors, however, was rarely addressed. This study aims at investigating the effects of demographic and non-demographic changes to the future healthcare utilization. Using individual and household level data from various national-level surveys, discrete choice models are used to estimate the propensity of use of healthcare for each population group specified by demographic and non-demographic characteristics, which is then projected to the future population. The study shows that the effects of demographic change are quite substantial in term of size and pattern of utilization. However, these effects can be either compounded or undermined by non-demographic factors, such as health insurance subscription and chronic diseases. The share of health care utilization among elderly is not as high as commonly been perceived. This study offers an insight that the effects of demographic change to healthcare utilization is not straightforward if we are to acknowledge that ageing progresses along with the non-demographic factors as the case in many developing countries.