Health care in Saskatoon's inner city : a comparative study of native and non-native utilization patterns

Abstract

This report presents an overview of the findings of the "Westside Clinic-Friendship Inn" exploratory study into the health care utilization patterns of urban Native and non-Native people in the west core area of Saskatoon. The focus of the research was upon Native utilization patterns and a general hypothesis was formulated, guided by the existing literature, that suggested that Natives tend to "underutilize" or "inappropriately" utilize urban health care facilities and services in relation to non-Natives. Pragmatic in design, the intent of the research was to investigate this hypothesis as well as to provide a data base and recommendations that would contribute to an improvement in health care delivery in the west core area of downtown Saskatoon.