IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0304834.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond objective metrics: A comparative analysis of health care systems incorporating subjective dimensions to improve comparability of access and equity in healthcare assessments

Author

Listed:
  • Sandra Jaworeck

Abstract

Comparing health care systems is important for several reasons. E.g. lower-resource health care systems can learn from higher-resource ones, and country-specific progress can be made. Previous rankings of health care systems have been based on objective factors such as the number of available hospital beds or health care spending. An index is considered here that includes a subjective level that is intended to represent access to the health care system. Therefore, this study investigates the divergence between subjective and objective indices related to health care expenditure, with a focus on the influence of involuntary and voluntary payments. Utilizing the Rational Choice Theory as a framework, it explores how individual preferences and perceived benefits affect these indices. The analysis reveals that social insurance contributions, which are mandatory and beyond individual control, are evaluated differently in subjective indices compared to objective indices. This discrepancy is less pronounced for voluntary expenditures, where individuals have decision-making power. The findings highlight significant variations in the correlations between macroeconomic health care indicators and the indices, emphasizing the critical role of autonomy in financial decisions related to health care.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra Jaworeck, 2024. "Beyond objective metrics: A comparative analysis of health care systems incorporating subjective dimensions to improve comparability of access and equity in healthcare assessments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(6), pages 1-17, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0304834
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304834
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304834
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304834&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0304834?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Handler, A. & Issel, M. & Turnock, B., 2001. "A conceptual framework to measure performance of the public health system," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(8), pages 1235-1239.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Claudiu CICEA, 2011. "Consideration Regarding Cost’S Evaluation In Healthcare Area," Business Excellence and Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 1(1), pages 37-48, December.
    2. Eugenio Zucchelli & Andrew M Jones & Nigel Rice, 2012. "The evaluation of health policies through dynamic microsimulation methods," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 5(1), pages 2-20.
    3. Francisco Muñoz-Pradas, 2011. "Health intervention and decline in infant mortality rates. Milk depots in Spain (1900-1936)," UHE Working papers 2011_10, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    4. Mariam Safi & Maja L. Bertram & Gabriel Gulis, 2020. "Assessing Delivery of Selected Public Health Operations via Essential Public Health Operation Framework," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-10, September.
    5. Wilbroad Mutale & Peter Godfrey-Fausset & Margaret Tembo Mwanamwenge & Nkatya Kasese & Namwinga Chintu & Dina Balabanova & Neil Spicer & Helen Ayles, 2013. "Measuring Health System Strengthening: Application of the Balanced Scorecard Approach to Rank the Baseline Performance of Three Rural Districts in Zambia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-11, March.
    6. Yelin Fu & Yubing Sui & Hao Luo & Biao Han, 2020. "Application of Social Choice Theory to Modify the Value Measure of Health Systems," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 1005-1019, April.
    7. Jaime Madrigano & Anita Chandra & Tracy Costigan & Joie D. Acosta, 2017. "Beyond Disaster Preparedness: Building a Resilience-Oriented Workforce for the Future," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-14, December.
    8. David Naranjo-Gil & María Jesús Sánchez-Expósito & Laura Gómez-Ruiz, 2016. "Traditional vs. Contemporary Management Control Practices for Developing Public Health Policies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-13, July.
    9. Atul Sharma & Shankar Prinja & Arun Kumar Aggarwal, 2019. "Comprehensive measurement of health system performance at district level in India: Generation of a composite index," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 1783-1799, October.
    10. Schmitt, Carol L. & Glasgow, LaShawn & Lavinghouze, S. Rene & Rieker, Patricia P. & Fulmer, Erika & McAleer, Kelly & Rogers, Todd, 2016. "Measuring infrastructure: A key step in program evaluation and planning," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 50-55.
    11. Ahad Bakhtiari & Amirhossein Takian & Afshin Ostovar & Masoud Behzadifar & Efat Mohamadi & Maryam Ramezani, 2023. "Developing an organizational capacity assessment tool and capacity-building package for the National Center for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases in Iran," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(6), pages 1-20, June.
    12. Sandra Jaworeck, 2022. "A New Approach for Constructing a Health Care Index including the Subjective Level," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-16, August.
    13. Sogoric, Selma & Dzakula, Aleksandar & Rukavina, Tea Vukusic & Grozic-Zivolic, Sonja & Lazaric-Zec, Danijela & Dzono-Boban, Ankica & Brborovic, Ognjen & Lang, Slobodan & Vuletic, Silvije, 2009. "Evaluation of Croatian model of polycentric health planning and decision making," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 271-278, March.
    14. Jian Zhou & Chuhan Wang & Xinyu Zhang & Shuang Wang, 2022. "Public Health System and Socio-Economic Development Coupling Based on Systematic Theory: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-14, October.
    15. Ker, Jun-Ing & Wang, Yichuan & Hajli, M. Nick & Song, Jiahe & Ker, Cappi W., 2014. "Deploying lean in healthcare: Evaluating information technology effectiveness in U.S. hospital pharmacies," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 556-560.
    16. Zucchelli, E & Jones, A.M & Rice, N, 2010. "The evaluation of health policies through microsimulation methods," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 10/03, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Claudiu CICEA & Gheorghe ALEXANDRU & Sebastian Madalin MUNTEANU, 2010. "Qualitative factors in the healthcare services," Economia. Seria Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(2), pages 457-469, December.
    18. Christiaan G. Abildso & Cynthia K. Perry & Lauren Jacobs & M. Renée Umstattd Meyer & Megan McClendon & Michael B. Edwards & James N. Roemmich & Zachary Ramsey & Margaret Stout, 2021. "What Sets Physically Active Rural Communities Apart from Less Active Ones? A Comparative Case Study of Three US Counties," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-21, October.
    19. Miaomiao Tian & Da Feng & Xi Chen & Yingchun Chen & Xi Sun & Yuanxi Xiang & Fang Yuan & Zhanchun Feng, 2013. "China's Rural Public Health System Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0304834. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.