IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Decomposing the causes of inequalities in health care use: A micro-simulations approach

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Huber, Hélène

Abstract

We propose an innovative method for the decomposition of factors associated with inequalities in the use of health care. We analyze individual data and make use of micro-simulations to evaluate the effect of heterogeneity of individual behaviors on inequality in access to care. Our study employs methods that, unlike earlier work, permits evaluation of heterogeneity of individual behaviors. We provide an application of this method by decomposing inequality of health care use in France in 1998. We show that half of the inequity in access to care is due to the heterogeneity of behaviors relative to the rank of individuals in the income distribution. This approach reconciles Oaxaca-like decompositions of inequality, focused on outcome gaps, with analyses involving decompositions of inequality by factors, focused on inequity indices.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6296(08)00094-5
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Health Economics.

Volume (Year): 27 (2008)
Issue (Month): 6 (December)
Pages: 1605-1613

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:1605-1613
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560

Keywords: Health care consumption Econometrics Micro-simulations Inequalities;

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Eddy van Doorslaer & Xander Koolman & Andrew M. Jones, 2004. "Explaining income-related inequalities in doctor utilisation in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 629-647.
  2. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy & Watanabe, Naoko, 2003. "On decomposing the causes of health sector inequalities with an application to malnutrition inequalities in Vietnam," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 207-223, January.
  3. Eddy van Doorslaer & Cristina Masseria, 2004. "Income-Related Inequality in the Use of Medical Care in 21 OECD Countries," OECD Health Working Papers 14, OECD Publishing.
  4. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2000. "Chapter 34 Equity in health care finance and delivery," Handbook of Health Economics,in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 34, pages 1803-1862 Elsevier.
  5. Grogger, J T & Carson, Richard T, 1991. "Models for Truncated Counts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(3), pages 225-238, July-Sept.
  6. van Doorslaer, Eddy & Wagstaff, Adam & van der Burg, Hattem & Christiansen, Terkel & De Graeve, Diana & Duchesne, Inge & Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Gerfin, Michael & Geurts, Jose & Gross, Lorna, 2000. "Equity in the delivery of health care in Europe and the US," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 553-583, September.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Sato, Azusa, 2012. "Do Inequalities in Health Care Utilization in Developing Countries Change When We Take into Account Traditional Medicines?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2275-2289.
  2. Lupi-Pegurier, Laurence & Clerc-Urmes, Isabelle & Abu-Zaineh, Mohammad & Paraponaris, Alain & Ventelou, Bruno, 2011. "Density of dental practitioners and access to dental care for the elderly: A multilevel analysis with a view on socio-economic inequality," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 160-167.
  3. Philippe Batifoulier & John Latsis & Jacques Merchiers, 2010. "Les priorités de la prise en charge financière des soins. Une approche par la philosophie du besoin," EconomiX Working Papers 2010-2, University of Paris West - Nanterre la Defense, EconomiX.
  4. Yuejen ZHAO, 2013. "Decomposition of Concentration Index using Generalised Linear Model: Analysis of Socio-Economic Determinants of Health Inequality in the Northern Territory of Australia," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 145-154.
  5. Van de Poel, Ellen & Van Doorslaer, Eddy & O’Donnell, Owen, 2012. "Measurement of inequity in health care with heterogeneous response of use to need," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 676-689.
  6. Abu-Zaineh, Mohammad & Mataria, Awad & Moatti, Jean-Paul & Ventelou, Bruno, 2011. "Measuring and decomposing socioeconomic inequality in healthcare delivery: A microsimulation approach with application to the Palestinian conflict-affected fragile setting," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 133-141, January.
  7. Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2009. "Measurement of Health, the Sensitivity of the Concentration Index, and Reporting Heterogeneity," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 211, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
  8. Ziebarth, Nicolas, 2010. "Measurement of health, health inequality, and reporting heterogeneity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 116-124, July.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:1605-1613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.