Measuring Income-Related Inequalities in Health in Multi-Country Analysis

Authors

  • Cristina Hernández-Quevedo European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, LSE Health, United Kingdom. E-mail: C.Hernandez-Quevedo@lse.ac.uk
  • Cristina Masseria GSK Vaccines, Philadelphia, USA. E- mail: cristina.x.masseria@gsk.com

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25115/eea.v31i2.3336

Keywords:

Concentration Index, Inequalities In Health, Self-Assessed Health, Health Limitations, Europe.

Abstract

Health inequalities remain a cause of concern for policymakers across the world. However, the measurement and monitoring of health inequalities over time and across countries remain a research challenge. The concentration index is one of the most popular measurement tools, however, it presents several drawbacks, especially for bounded variables, which are discussed in this study. Results from the European Community Household Panel dataset and the Statistics of Income and Living Conditions for Europe suggest that there is evidence of persistent socioeconomic inequalities in health in Europe. Further, results show the need of reporting both absolute and relative inequalities for appropriately monitoring and comparing trends in health inequalities across countries.

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Published

2020-03-29