1. An Examination of Factors Related to Location of Death: Does Socio-Economic Status Matter?
MANITOBA CENTRE FOR HEALTH POLICY
Verena Menec
Lisa Lix
Carmen Steinbach
Oke Ekuma
Monica Sirski
Ruth-Ann Soodeen

2. Most people die in hospital even though most would prefer to die at home.
Inconsistent results in terms of whether socio-economic status is related to location of death.
The Issue

3. To examine whether socio-economic status is related to location of death.
Objective

4. All adults (19+ years old) who died in Manitoba in 2000/01
9436 individuals
The Population

5. Administrative Data Hospital Nursing Home Home Care Population - Based
Research
Registry
Vital
Statistics
Home Care
Nursing Home
Hospital
Census

6. Age
Cause of death
Gender
Marital status
Income quintiles
Predictors

7. Outcome Variables
Long-term care, home care, Other Location vs. hospital
Hospital, home care, Other Location vs. palliative unit
Among hospital deaths - “regular ward”, ICU vs. palliative unit

10. Regression Results: Age 65+
* p < .01; ** p < .001

11. Regression Results: Cancer
* p < .05

12. Key Findings
Cause of death and age are major predictors of location of death.
Few income effects, although for cancer deaths, the wealthiest were more likely to die on home care, relative to in a palliative care unit, than the poorest.

13. Conclusions
Despite the availability of palliative home care, there may be barriers to dying at home for the poorest.
Whether the new Palliative Drug Access program will reduce barriers for the less wealthy needs to be examined.

14. M
Manitoba
Centre for
Health
Policy C H P