IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i20p10856-d657347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Socioeconomic Determinants of Health and Their Unequal Distribution in Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Justyna Rój

    (Department of Operational Research and Mathematical Economics, The Poznań University of Economics and Business, Al. Niepodległości 10, 61-875 Poznań, Poland)

  • Maciej Jankowiak

    (Department of Organisation and Healthcare Management, Poznań University of Medical Sciences, ul. Przybyszewskiego 39, 60-356 Poznań, Poland)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify inequities in the distribution of socioeconomic determinants of health within Poland and their impact on the health status of Poles, as measured by mortality rate. We hypothesised that (1) there are inequities in the socioeconomic characteristics within geographically defined population groups and (2) some socioeconomic determinants of health have a particularly strong impact on the health status of Poles. Poland is administratively divided into three levels: voivodeships, powiats and gminas. We used a dataset covering all 380 powiats in Poland for the year 2018. We employed a two-stage nested Theil index and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. In order to identify which of these determinants has the strongest impact on health, we conducted a regression analysis. The study revealed some inequities in the distribution of socioeconomic determinants of health. The mortality rate can be partly understood from variations within voivodeships in the distribution of health determinants. Important national inequalities were found in the case of two determinants, which simultaneously proved their significant impact on Poles’ health in the regression analysis. Thus, type of employment and access to modern infrastructure should be of particular concern for public authorities.

Suggested Citation

  • Justyna Rój & Maciej Jankowiak, 2021. "Socioeconomic Determinants of Health and Their Unequal Distribution in Poland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-20, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:20:p:10856-:d:657347
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10856/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10856/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:cheawb:case_paxson_economic_status_paper is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Andrea Amerio & Andrea Brambilla & Alessandro Morganti & Andrea Aguglia & Davide Bianchi & Francesca Santi & Luigi Costantini & Anna Odone & Alessandra Costanza & Carlo Signorelli & Gianluca Serafini , 2020. "COVID-19 Lockdown: Housing Built Environment’s Effects on Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-10, August.
    3. Krieger, J. & Higgins, D.L., 2002. "Housing and health: Time again for public health action," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(5), pages 758-768.
    4. Virchow, R.C., 2006. "Report on the typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia. 1848," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(12), pages 2102-2105.
    5. Richard Auster & Irving Leveson & Deborah Sarachek, 1969. "The Production of Health, an Exploratory Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 4(4), pages 411-436.
    6. Basu, Anirban & Jones, Andrew M. & Dias, Pedro Rosa, 2018. "Heterogeneity in the impact of type of schooling on adult health and lifestyle," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Kabaya, Kei, 2021. "Empirical analysis of associations between health expenditure and forest environments: A case of Japan," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    8. Zhongliang Zhou & Yu Fang & Zhiying Zhou & Dan Li & Dan Wang & Yanli Li & Li Lu & Jianmin Gao & Gang Chen, 2017. "Assessing Income-Related Health Inequality and Horizontal Inequity in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 241-256, May.
    9. Yuanyuan Wu & Yuxiang Song & Tingting Yu, 2019. "Spatial Differences in China’s Population Aging and Influencing Factors: The Perspectives of Spatial Dependence and Spatial Heterogeneity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-20, October.
    10. repec:pri:cheawb:case_paxson_economic_status_paper.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    11. McCartney, Gerry & Collins, Chik & Mackenzie, Mhairi, 2013. "What (or who) causes health inequalities: Theories, evidence and implications?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 221-227.
    12. Agnieszka Bem & Rafał Siedlecki & Paweł Prędkiewicz & Patrizia Gazzola & Bożena Ryszawska & Paulina Ucieklak-Jeż, 2019. "Hospitals’ Financial Health in Rural and Urban Areas in Poland: Does It Ensure Sustainability?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-17, April.
    13. Takahiro Akita, 2003. "Decomposing regional income inequality in China and Indonesia using two-stage nested Theil decomposition method," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 37(1), pages 55-77, February.
    14. Duch, Danuta & Sokooâwska, Magdalena, 1990. "Health inequalities in Poland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 343-350, January.
    15. Michael Grossman, 1972. "The Demand for Health: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gros72-1, March.
    16. Wagstaff, Adam, 1989. "Econometric studies in health economics : A survey of the British literature," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-51, March.
    17. Maria Daskalaki & Marianna Fotaki & Maria Simosi, 2021. "The gendered impact of the financial crisis: Struggles over social reproduction in Greece," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(4), pages 741-762, June.
    18. Anne Case & Darren Lubotsky & Christina Paxson, 2002. "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1308-1334, December.
    19. Andrey Aistov & Ekaterina Aleksandrova & Christopher J. Gerry, 2021. "Voluntary private health insurance, health-related behaviours and health outcomes: evidence from Russia," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(2), pages 281-309, March.
    20. Kazeem Bello Ajide & Olorunfemi Yasiru Alimi, 2020. "The Conditioning Role of Institutions in Environment-Health Outcomes Nexus in Africa," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 634-663, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Justyna Rój, 2022. "Inequity in the Access to eHealth and Its Decomposition Case of Poland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Magdalena Tuczyńska & Rafał Staszewski & Maja Matthews-Kozanecka & Ewa Baum, 2022. "Impact of Socioeconomic Status on the Perception of Accessibility to and Quality of Healthcare Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Poles—Pilot Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-10, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carolina Navarro & Luis Ayala & José Labeaga, 2010. "Housing deprivation and health status: evidence from Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 555-582, June.
    2. R Todd Jewell & Maximo Rossi & Patricia Triunfo, 2006. "El Estado de Salud de los Jóvenes Uruguayos," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 43(128), pages 235-250.
    3. Peng Nie & Andrew E. Clarck & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Lanlin Ding, 2020. "Income-related health inequality in urban China (1991-2015): The role of homeownership and housing conditions," Working Papers 524, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Ozdamar, Oznur & Giovanis, Eleftherios, 2016. "Being Healthy in Turkey: A Pseudo-Panel Data Analysis," MPRA Paper 95838, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Thompson, Owen, 2011. "Racial disparities in the cognition-health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 328-339, March.
    6. Chen, Keith & Lange, Fabian, 2008. "Education, Information, and Improved Health: Evidence from Breast Cancer Screening," IZA Discussion Papers 3548, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Coast, Joanna, 2018. "A history that goes hand in hand: Reflections on the development of health economics and the role played by Social Science & Medicine, 1967–2017," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 227-232.
    8. Haveman, Robert & Wolfe, Barbara & Kreider, Brent & Stone, Mark, 1994. "Market work, wages, and men's health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 163-182, July.
    9. Gilleskie, Donna B. & Harrison, Amy L., 1998. "The effect of endogenous health inputs on the relationship between health and education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 279-295, June.
    10. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace & Shields, Michael A. & Suziedelyte, Agne, 2015. "Education and health knowledge: Evidence from UK compulsory schooling reform," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 92-100.
    11. Parsons, Donald O, 1977. "Health, Family Structure, and Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 703-712, September.
    12. Ma, Yuanyuan & Nolan, Anne & Smith, James P., 2018. "The value of education to health: Evidence from Ireland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 14-25.
    13. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Gabriella Berloffa & Agar Brugiavini & Dino Rizzi, 2006. "Health, Welfare and Inequality," Working Papers 2006_41, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    15. Nevzer Stacey, 1998. "Social Benefits of Education," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 559(1), pages 54-63, September.
    16. Eva Hernandez-Garcia & Evangelia Chrysikou & Anastasia Z. Kalea, 2021. "The Interplay between Housing Environmental Attributes and Design Exposures and Psychoneuroimmunology Profile—An Exploratory Review and Analysis Paper in the Cancer Survivors’ Mental Health Morbidity ," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-32, October.
    17. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Time Preference and Health: An Exploratory Study," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 93-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Máximo Rossi & Patricia Triunfo, 2004. "El Estado de Salud del Adulto Mayor en Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1404, Department of Economics - dECON.
    19. Reed Olsen & Hui-Kuan Tseng, 2016. "The U.S. health care expenditure: evidence from 2001 to 2009," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(60), pages 5931-5940, December.
    20. Lorenzo Capasso & Daniela D’Alessandro, 2021. "Housing and Health: Here We Go Again," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-9, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:20:p:10856-:d:657347. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.