 Measuring inequalities in health: What do we know? What do we need to know?Joan Costa-Font and Cristina Hernández-Quevedo () Health Policy, 2012, vol. 106, issue 2, 195-206 Abstract: We argue that policy analysis aiming at curving inequalities in health calls for a better understanding of what we know about its measurement pathways. Assuming that health is a good that individuals trade off against other goods, unavoidable health inequalities result when after controlling for unavoidable factors (e.g., age and gender), differences in socioeconomic status of an individual systemically engender differences in health outcomes. However, the measurement of such inequality and underpinning reasons behind are not suggestive of a clear picture. In reviewing the literature, we conclude that it is unclear what the evidence suggests about the reasons for health inequalities as well as the best possible instruments to measure both inequality and socioeconomic health gradients. We provide an evaluation of the different sources of health inequity and we draw upon measurement issues and their policy significance. Keywords: Socioeconomic status; Health inequalities; Income; Education; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:106:y:2012:i:2:p:195-206 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.04.007 Access Statistics for this article Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier |
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