Bridging the gap: health equality and the deficit framing of health

Alec Morton

Health Economics, 2010, vol. 19, issue 12, 1497-1501

Abstract: The analyst tasked with measuring population health, with appraising healthcare investments, or allocating healthcare resources, may frame their task in one of two possible ways: either as being concerned with health assets (e.g. health expectancy or stock of QALYs), or with health deficits (a ‘health gap’, analogous to the poverty gap). In this paper, we discuss the consequences of taking the asset or the deficit concept as one's basic building block in developing a health measurement system when one has concerns about equitable distribution. We conclude that building metrics from a primitive health gap concept is possible and indeed may offer insights not otherwise easily accessible. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1556

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:19:y:2010:i:12:p:1497-1501

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().