Women in Free Clinics: An Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life for Prevention and Health Education
Understanding gender influences on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is important to improve women’s health when considering diseases that afflict women specifically. The target population of this study was uninsured female free clinic patients who are low socio-economic status and lack access to healthcare resources. Free clinics provide free or reduced fee healthcare to individuals who lack access to primary care and are socio-economically disadvantaged. While approximately half of free clinic patients are women, there is a paucity of comprehensive health-related data for female free clinic patients. US born English, non-US born English, and Spanish speaking female free clinic patients completed a self-administered survey using a standardized women’s HRQoL measure in Fall 2014 (N = 389). Female free clinic patients reported lower HRQoL on all aspects of women’s health compared to the US baseline scores, and were less likely to utilize preventive care including: ma...