Time to use of primary health care after reporting adverse health conditions in a health study (HUNT).

Seeing a general practitioner (GP) after first discovering conditions related to ill health is important for the prevention or timely treatment of major diseases. Receiving information about adverse health conditions, e.g. from participating in a health study, might increase awareness and trigger a visit to the GP to get a check-up. The question is, if people allocated in different socioeconomic groups respond differently to receiving information about health detrimental conditions. This could indirectly increase socioeconomic inequalities in health. The aim of this study is to analyse the time it takes participants to contact their GP after receiving information about, e.g. high systolic blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, high blood cholesterol, while participating in the HUNT study. Furthermore, are we aiming to look into the follow up of patients, per monthly consultation with the GP in a period of 12 month after reporting adverse health outcomes. In this analysis, we are going to use data from several Norwegian national registries (KUHR; SSB) which were linked to HUNT2 and HUNT3 data. Cox-proportional hazard regression models, controlling for relevant confounders, will be used to estimate the time it takes patients to get an appointment with their GP after having received information on health detrimental conditions. In a second step, we will analyse the time it takes to get, and the number of, follow up appointments after this first visit.