Health counseling for women in the absence of financial barriers: comparing reported counseling rates of women in the United States and Israel.

This study compares rates of health counseling for women in the United States and Israel and identifies factors affecting counseling rates, based on a weighted sample of 2,257 US and 848 Israeli women. In both countries, fewer than half of the women reported speaking with a physician about any of a set of preventive counseling topics (e.g., smoking, diet, exercise) during the year preceding the survey. However, US women reported significantly higher rates of health counseling than did Israeli women, even among specific risk groups (e.g., smokers). Multivariate analysis revealed that "country" had an independent effect after controlling for demographic factors. This paper highlights structural and functional barriers to counseling that persist in the Israeli system in the absence of financial barriers and discusses ways to overcome them.