How Can Elderly Residents of Texas Be Informed about Medicare?: A Geographic Approach to Media Consumption by Older Population of Texas
Date
2016-12
Authors
Khani, Zahra
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Abstract
This study intends to locate Medicare beneficiaries in Texas and to propose effective outreach methods to use for providing elderly people with information about Medicare. Data, used for this study, have primarily been acquired from U.S. Census and a survey, customized by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University. Two research objectives were expected to be achieved: a) at the individual level, the associations between socio-demographic characteristics of elderly people and the type of media that they use, were questioned and studied. Some of the characteristics that were significantly correlated with the media consumption are age, income, education, and ethnicity; b) at the geographical level, spatial autocorrelations - being random, clustered or dispersed - for media consumption, were studied. Not so many types of media resulted to be spatially clustered or dispersed. However, patterns show differences between rural areas, urban/suburban areas, and locations with clustered Hispanic population. Regardless of limitations of this study, the results can be used for identifying new policies and methodologies that can help expanding health and healthcare awareness more effectively.
Description
Keywords
GIS, media consumption, elderly, health information, medicare, Applied Geography
Citation
Khani, Z. (2016). How can elderly residents of Texas be informed about medicare?: A geographic approach to media consumption by older population of Texas. Master of Applied Geography Degree, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX.