IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v171y2016icp39-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Avoiding blindness to health status in health achievement and health inequality measurement

Author

Listed:
  • Makdissi, Paul
  • Yazbeck, Myra

Abstract

The concentration index, being focused on the socioeconomic dimension of health inequality and overlooking aversion to pure health inequality, can produce ethically contestable rankings of health distributions. A health transfer from a sicker but richer individual to healthier but poorer individual will decrease the concentration index. This paper presents a new class of health inequality indices that avoid this limitation by trading off socioeconomic-related health inequality against pure health inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Makdissi, Paul & Yazbeck, Myra, 2016. "Avoiding blindness to health status in health achievement and health inequality measurement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 39-47.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:171:y:2016:i:c:p:39-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.10.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616305950
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.10.027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erreygers, Guido, 2009. "Correcting the Concentration Index: A reply to Wagstaff," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 521-524, March.
    2. Makdissi, Paul & Yazbeck, Myra, 2014. "Measuring socioeconomic health inequalities in presence of multiple categorical information," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 84-95.
    3. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. II," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 82-111, August.
    4. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2003. "An Atkinson-Gini family of social evaluation functions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(19), pages 1-16.
    5. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. I," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 416-442, June.
    6. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    7. Clarke, Philip M. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Johannesson, Magnus & Bingefors, Kerstin & Smith, Len, 2002. "On the measurement of relative and absolute income-related health inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 1923-1928, December.
    8. Wagstaff, Adam, 2002. "Inequality aversion, health inequalities and health achievement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 627-641, July.
    9. Bleichrodt, Han & Rohde, Kirsten I.M. & Van Ourti, Tom, 2012. "An experimental test of the concentration index," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 86-98.
    10. Guido Erreygers, 2013. "A Dual Atkinson Measure Of Socioeconomic Inequality Of Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 466-479, April.
    11. Marc Fleurbaey, 2006. "Health, equity and social welfare," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 83-84, pages 21-59.
    12. Lambert, Peter & Zheng, Buhong, 2011. "On the consistent measurement of attainment and shortfall inequality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 214-219, January.
    13. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1983. "On an Extension of the Gini Inequality Index," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(3), pages 617-628, October.
    14. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    15. Dutta, Bhaskar, 2002. "Chapter 12 Inequality, poverty and welfare," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 597-633, Elsevier.
    16. Buhong Zheng, 2011. "A new approach to measure socioeconomic inequality in health," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 555-577, December.
    17. Bleichrodt, Han & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2006. "A welfare economics foundation for health inequality measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 945-957, September.
    18. Wagstaff, Adam & Paci, Pierella & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 1991. "On the measurement of inequalities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 545-557, January.
    19. Bommier, Antoine & Stecklov, Guy, 2002. "Defining health inequality: why Rawls succeeds where social welfare theory fails," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 497-513, May.
    20. ERREYGERS, Guido, 2006. "Beyond the Health Concentration Index: An Atkinson alternative for the measurement of the socioeconomic inequality of health," Working Papers 2006029, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    21. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy & Paci, Pierella, 1989. "Equity in the Finance and Delivery of Health Care: Some Tentative Cross-country Comparisons," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 5(1), pages 89-112, Spring.
    22. Berrebi, Z. M. & Silber, Jacques, 1981. "Weighting income ranks and levels : A Multiple-Parameter Generalization For Absolute and Relative Inequality Indices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 391-397.
    23. repec:adr:anecst:y:2006:i:83-84:p:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309-309.
    25. Fishburn, Peter C. & Willig, Robert D., 1984. "Transfer principles in income redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 323-328, December.
    26. Erreygers, Guido, 2009. "Correcting the Concentration Index," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 504-515, March.
    27. Allison, R. Andrew & Foster, James E., 2004. "Measuring health inequality using qualitative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 505-524, May.
    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. Gustav Kjellsson & Dennis Petrie & Tom (T.G.M.) van Ourti, 2018. "Measuring income-related inequalities in risky health prospects," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-007/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2017. "Robust rankings of socioeconomic health inequality using a categorical variable," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(9), pages 1132-1145, September.
    3. Xu, Aiting & Qiu, Keyang & Jin, Canyang & Cheng, Caijuan & Zhu, Yuhan, 2022. "Regional innovation ability and its inequality: Measurements and dynamic decomposition," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    4. Stéphane Mussard & Maria Noel Pi Alperin & Véronique Thireau, 2018. "Health inequality indices and exogenous risk factors: an illustration on Luxembourgish workers," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(9), pages 1285-1301, December.
    5. Khaled, Mohamad A. & Makdissi, Paul & Yazbeck, Myra, 2018. "Income-related health transfers principles and orderings of joint distributions of income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 315-331.
    6. Tzu-Ying Chen & Yi-Hsin Elsa Hsu & Rachel J. Huang & Larry Y. Tzeng, 2021. "Making socioeconomic health inequality comparisons when health concentration curves intersect," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(4), pages 875-899, November.

    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. Makdissi, Paul & Yazbeck, Myra, 2014. "Measuring socioeconomic health inequalities in presence of multiple categorical information," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 84-95.
    2. Erreygers, Guido & Van Ourti, Tom, 2011. "Measuring socioeconomic inequality in health, health care and health financing by means of rank-dependent indices: A recipe for good practice," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 685-694, July.
    3. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2017. "Robust rankings of socioeconomic health inequality using a categorical variable," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(9), pages 1132-1145, September.
    4. Guido Erreygers & Roselinde Kessels, 2017. "Socioeconomic Status and Health: A New Approach to the Measurement of Bivariate Inequality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-23, June.
    5. Paul Allanson & Dennis Petrie, 2013. "On The Choice Of Health Inequality Measure For The Longitudinal Analysis Of Income‐Related Health Inequalities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 353-365, March.
    6. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2012. "Avoiding Blinding to Health Status: A New Class of Health Achievement and Inequality Indices," Working Papers 1207E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    7. Zhong, Hai, 2009. "A multivariate analysis of the distribution of individual's welfare in China: What is the role of health?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1062-1070, December.
    8. Paul Allanson & Dennis Petrie, 2014. "Understanding The Vertical Equity Judgements Underpinning Health Inequality Measures," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(11), pages 1390-1396, November.
    9. Allanson, Paul, 2010. "Longitudinal analysis of income-related health inequality: welfare foundations and alternative measures," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-71, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    10. Mohamad A. Khaled & Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2023. "On absolute socioeconomic health inequality comparisons," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(1), pages 5-25, February.
    11. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2014. "Robust Wagstaff Orderings of Distributions of Self-Reported Health Status," Discussion Papers Series 533, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    12. Khaled, Mohamad A. & Makdissi, Paul & Yazbeck, Myra, 2018. "Income-related health transfers principles and orderings of joint distributions of income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 315-331.
    13. Bleichrodt, Han & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2006. "A welfare economics foundation for health inequality measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 945-957, September.
    14. Buhong Zheng, 2011. "A new approach to measure socioeconomic inequality in health," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 555-577, December.
    15. Tzu-Ying Chen & Yi-Hsin Elsa Hsu & Rachel J. Huang & Larry Y. Tzeng, 2021. "Making socioeconomic health inequality comparisons when health concentration curves intersect," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(4), pages 875-899, November.
    16. Kelly Maguire & Glenn Sheriff, 2011. "Comparing Distributions of Environmental Outcomes for Regulatory Environmental Justice Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-20, May.
    17. I. Josa & A. Aguado, 2020. "Measuring Unidimensional Inequality: Practical Framework for the Choice of an Appropriate Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 541-570, June.
    18. Guido Erreygers, 2013. "A Dual Atkinson Measure Of Socioeconomic Inequality Of Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 466-479, April.
    19. H. Eme Ichoku & William Fonta & Michael Thiede, 2011. "Socioeconomic gradients in self-rated health: a developing country case study of Enugu State, Nigeria," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 179-202, August.
    20. Mohammad Abu-Zaineh & Ramses H. Abul Naga, 2019. "Bread and Social Justice: Measurement of Social Welfare and Inequalities Using Anthropometrics," AMSE Working Papers 1930, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health inequality; Health achievement;

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:socmed:v:171:y:2016:i:c:p:39-47. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    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.