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On The Choice Of Health Inequality Measure For The Longitudinal Analysis Of Income‐Related Health Inequalities

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  • Paul Allanson
  • Dennis Petrie

Abstract

Changes in rank‐dependent income‐related health inequality measures over time may usefully be decomposed into contributions due to changes in health outcomes and changes in individuals' positions in the income distribution. This paper establishes the normative implications of this type of decomposition by embedding it within a broader analysis of changes in the ‘health achievement’ index. We further show that the choice of health inequality measure implies a particular vertical equity judgement, which may be expressed on a common scale in terms of the concentration index of health changes that would be inequality preserving. We illustrate the empirical implications of this choice by reporting results from a longitudinal analysis of changes in income‐related health inequality in Great Britain using the concentration, the Erreygers and Wagstaff indices of health attainments and the concentration index of health shortfalls. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:22:y:2013:i:3:p:353-365
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.2803
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    Cited by:

    1. Kjellsson, Gustav, 2014. "Extending Decomposition Analysis to Account for Socioeconomic Background: Income-Related Smoking Inequality among Swedish Women," Working Papers 2014:29, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. 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.
    3. Kjellsson, Gustav & Gerdtham, Ulf-G., 2013. "On correcting the concentration index for binary variables," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 659-670.
    4. Deppermann, Andre & Offermann, Frank & Grethe, Harald, 2016. "Redistributive effects of CAP liberalisation: From the sectoral level to the single farm," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 26-43.
    5. Satya R. Chakravarty & Nachiketa Chattopadhyay & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2016. "On a Family of Achievement and Shortfall Inequality Indices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(12), pages 1503-1513, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Paul Allanson & Dennis Petrie, 2021. "A unified framework to account for selective mortality in lifecycle analyses of the social gradient in health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2230-2245, September.
    8. Aristides dos Santos, Anderson Moreira & Perelman, Julian & Jacinto, Paulo de Andrade & Tejada, Cesar Augusto Oviedo & Barros, Aluísio J.D. & Bertoldi, Andréa D. & Matijasevich, Alicia & Santos, Iná S, 2019. "Income-related inequality and inequity in children’s health care: A longitudinal analysis using data from Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 127-137.
    9. Campos-Matos, Inês & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2015. "Social mobility and health in European countries: Does welfare regime type matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 241-248.
    10. Gustav Kjellsson & Ulf-G. Gerdtham, 2013. "Lost in Translation: Rethinking the Inequality Equivalence Criteria for Bounded Health Variables," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 3-32, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Sinha, Kompal & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M. & Sharma, Anurag, 2021. "Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    12. Allanson, Paul & Petrie, Dennis, 2013. "Longitudinal methods to investigate the role of health determinants in the dynamics of income-related health inequality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 922-937.
    13. Sam Harper & Eric Ruder & Henry A. Roman & Amelia Geggel & Onyemaechi Nweke & Devon Payne-Sturges & Jonathan I. Levy, 2013. "Using Inequality Measures to Incorporate Environmental Justice into Regulatory Analyses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, August.
    14. Alexi Gugushvili & Martin McKee & Michael Murphy & Aytalina Azarova & Darja Irdam & Katarzyna Doniec & Lawrence King, 2019. "Intergenerational Mobility in Relative Educational Attainment and Health-Related Behaviours," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 413-441, January.
    15. 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.
    16. Marcello Basili & Filippo Belloc, 2015. "How To Measure The Economic Impact Of Vector-Borne Diseases At Country Level," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 896-916, December.
    17. Kristof Bosmans, 2016. "Consistent Comparisons of Attainment and Shortfall Inequality: A Critical Examination," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1425-1432, November.
    18. Christiansen, Terkel & Lauridsen, Jørgen T., 2016. "Dynamic Changes in Determinants of Inequalities in Health in Europe with Focus on Retired - with Particular Regard to Retired Danes," DaCHE discussion papers 2016:8, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.

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