Inequity and inequality in the use of health care in England: an empirical investigation
Achieving equity in healthcare, in the form of equal use for equal need, is an objective of many healthcare systems. The evaluation of equity requires value judgements as well as analysis of data. Previous studies are limited in the range of health and supply variables considered but show a pro-poor distribution of general practitioner consultations and inpatient services and a pro-rich distribution of outpatient visits. We investigate inequality and inequity in the use of general practitioner consultations, outpatient visits, day cases and inpatient stays in England with a unique linked data set that combines rich information on the health of individuals and their socio-economic circumstances with information on local supply factors. The data are for the period 1998-2000, just prior to the introduction of a set of National Health Service (NHS) reforms with potential equity implications. We find inequalities in utilisation with respect to income, ethnicity, employment status and education. Low-income individuals and ethnic minorities have lower use of secondary care despite having higher use of primary care. Ward level supply factors affect utilisation and are important for investigating health care inequality. Our results show some evidence of inequity prior to the reforms and provide a baseline against which the effects of the new NHS can be assessed.
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.
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.
Volume (Year): 60 (2005)
Issue (Month): 6 (March)
Pages: 1251-1266
| Handle: | RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:6:p:1251-1266 |
| Contact details of provider: | Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description
|
| Order Information: | Postal: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional Web: http://www.elsevier.com/orderme/journalorderform.cws_home/315/journalorderform1/orderooc/id=654&ref=654_01_ooc_1&version=01 |
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.:
- Adamson, Joy & Ben-Shlomo, Yoav & Chaturvedi, Nish & Donovan, Jenny, 2003. "Ethnicity, socio-economic position and gender--do they affect reported health--care seeking behaviour?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 895-904, September.
- Smaje, Chris & Le Grand, Julian, 1997. "Ethnicity, equity and the use of health services in the British NHS," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 485-496, August.
- Adam Wagstaff & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2000. "Measuring and Testing for Inequity in the Delivery of Health Care," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(4), pages 716-733.
- Ignacio Abasolo & Rob Manning & Andrew Jones, 2001. "Equity in utilization of and access to public-sector GPs in Spain," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 349-364.
- Sutton, Matthew & Carr-Hill, Roy & Gravelle, Hugh & Rice, Nigel, 1999. "Do measures of self-reported morbidity bias the estimation of the determinants of health care utilisation?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 867-878, October.
- 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.
- Matthew Sutton, 2002. "Vertical and horizontal aspects of socio-economic inequity in general practitioner contacts in Scotland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 537-549.
- Goddard, Maria & Smith, Peter, 2001. "Equity of access to health care services: : Theory and evidence from the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(9), pages 1149-1162, November.
- Mooney, Gavin & Hall, Jane & Donaldson, Cam & Gerard, Karen, 1991. "Utilisation as a measure of equity: weighing heat?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 475-480.
- McClements, L. D., 1977. "Equivalence scales for children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, October.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:6:p:1251-1266. 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.