IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v18y2009is1ps55-s75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring health inequality with realization of potential life years (RePLY)

Author

Listed:
  • Kam Ki Tang
  • Dennis Petrie
  • D. S. Prasada Rao

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method to measure health inequalities that are caused by conditions amenable to policy intervention. The method is built on a technique that can separate avoidable and unavoidable mortality risks, using world mortality data compiled by the World Health Organization for the year 2000. The new method is applied to data from 191 countries. It is found that controlling for unavoidable mortality risks leads to a lower estimate of health inequality than otherwise, especially for developed countries. Furthermore, although countries with a higher life expectancy at birth tend to have lower health inequality, there are significant variations in health inequalities across countries with the same life expectancy. The results therefore support the WHO's plea for using health inequality as a distinct parameter from the average level of health in assessing the performance of health systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Kam Ki Tang & Dennis Petrie & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2009. "Measuring health inequality with realization of potential life years (RePLY)," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 55-75, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:s1:p:s55-s75
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1461
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1461
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1461?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. Silber, Jacques, 1982. "Health and inequality : Some applications of uncertainty theory," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(19), pages 1663-1666, January.
    2. Cowell, F.A., 2000. "Measurement of inequality," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 87-166, Elsevier.
    3. Tang, Kam Ki & Chin, Jackie T.C. & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2008. "Avoidable mortality risks and measurement of wellbeing and inequality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 624-641, May.
    4. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    5. Kam-Ki Tang & Denis Petrie & Prasada Rao, "undated". "The Climate Trap of Health Development: Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Climate and Income on Mortality," MRG Discussion Paper Series 1908, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    6. 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.
    7. Le Grand, Julian, 1987. "Inequalities in health : Some international comparisons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 182-191.
    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. David Warner & Prasada Rao & William E. Griffiths & Duangkamon Chotikapanich, 2011. "Global Inequality: Levels and Trends, 1993-2005," Discussion Papers Series 436, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    2. Fafa Yan & Alec Zuo & Wen’e Qi & Zhimin Zhou, 2023. "The Effect of Ecological Management on Regional Health Inequality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-22, February.
    3. Dennis Petrie & Kam Tang & D. Rao, 2015. "Measuring Health Inequality with Realization of Conditional Potential Life Years (RCPLY)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 21-44, May.
    4. Dennis Petrie & Kam Ki Tang, 2008. "A Rethink on Measuring Health Inequalities Using the Gini Coefficient," Discussion Papers Series 381, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    5. Adriana Castelli & Olena Nizalova, 2011. "Avoidable mortality: what it means and how it is measured," Working Papers 063cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

    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. Bénédicte Apouey & Jacques Silber & Yongsheng Xu, 2020. "On Inequality‐Sensitive and Additive Achievement Measures Based on Ordinal Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 267-286, June.
    2. Dennis Petriea & Kam Ki Tang & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2009. "Measuring Avoidable Health Inequality with Realization of Conditional Potential Life Years (RCPLY)," Discussion Papers Series 395, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    3. Dennis Petrie & Kam Tang & D. Rao, 2015. "Measuring Health Inequality with Realization of Conditional Potential Life Years (RCPLY)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 21-44, May.
    4. Frick, Joachim R. & Grabka, Markus M. & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Tsakloglou, Panos, 2010. "Distributional Effects of Imputed Rents in Five European Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 167-179.
    5. Thomas Fischer, 2012. "Inequality and Financial Markets - A Simulation Approach in a Heterogeneous Agent Model," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Andrea Teglio & Simone Alfarano & Eva Camacho-Cuena & Miguel Ginés-Vilar (ed.), Managing Market Complexity, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 79-90, Springer.
    6. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Peter Lambert & Thor Thoresen, 2009. "Base independence in the analysis of tax policy effects: with an application to Norway 1992–2004," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(2), pages 219-252, April.
    8. Fischer, Thomas & Riedler, Jesper, 2014. "Prices, debt and market structure in an agent-based model of the financial market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 95-120.
    9. Camacho Cuena, Eva & Neugebauer, Tibor & Seidl, Christian, 2005. "Compensating justice beats leaky buckets: an experimental investigation," Economics Working Papers 2005-06, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    10. Fischer, Thomas & Lundtofte, Frederik, 2020. "Unequal returns: Using the Atkinson index to measure financial risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    11. Giorgio Calcagnini & Francesco Perugini, 2019. "A Well-Being Indicator for the Italian Provinces," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 149-177, February.
    12. Almas Heshmati, 2006. "Continental And Sub-Continental Income Inequality," The IUP Journal of Applied Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(1), pages 7-52, January.
    13. Stephen P. Jenkins & John Micklewright, 2007. "New Directions in the Analysis of Inequality and Poverty," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 700, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Dorothée Boccanfuso & Bernard Decaluwé & Luc Savard, 2008. "Poverty, income distribution and CGE micro-simulation modeling: Does the functional form of distribution matter?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 149-184, June.
    15. Cowell, Frank, 2006. "Inequality: measurement," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2686, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Kristof Bosmans & Erwin Ooghe, 2013. "A characterization of maximin," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 1(2), pages 151-156, November.
    17. Gornig, Martin & Goebel, Jan, 2018. "Deindustrialisation and the polarisation of household incomes: The example of urban agglomerations in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 790-806.
    18. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia, 2008. "The ‘Extended’ Atkinson family: The class of multiplicatively decomposable inequality measures, and some new graphical procedures for analysts," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 211-225, June.
    19. P. Jenkins, Stephen & V. Burkhauser, Richard & Feng, Shuaizhang & Larrimore, Jeff, 2009. "Measuring inequality using censored data: a multiple imputation approach," ISER Working Paper Series 2009-04, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    20. Gabriel Burdín, 2016. "Equality Under Threat by the Talented: Evidence from Worker‐Managed Firms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1372-1403, August.

    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:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:s1:p:s55-s75. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.