Exploring Population Age as a Utilization Variable in Medical Assistance in Dying in British Columbia, Canada
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Since the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada in 2016, more than 4,674 British Columbians (BC) have chosen this end-of-life option (1). Among the BC Health Authorities (HA), the 2020 MAiD utilization rate ranged from 1.92 – 6.61%. Island HA has consistently had the highest utilization rate. Our research question: Could population age differences for regional health authorities be contributing to these differences in MAiD utilization rates? We used descriptive statistics and the direct method to calculate age-standardized MAiD mortality rates for Island HA. Agespecific Island HA mortality rates were then used for extrapolation to other BC HA. We used age-standardized rates to predict age-adjusted 2019 MAiD deaths per HA and found a considerable difference between the actual MAiD deaths of all deaths and projected percentages for each of the other four HA. Differences in population ages between BC HA are unlikely to be a significant reason for the differences in MAiD percentage of deaths. Differences may be due to HA variation in the provision of MAiD services or other socio-demographic characteristics. Further research is needed to understand better assisted dying utilization variability.
Institution: University of Victoria
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4309023028