IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eme/reinzz/s1049-2585(2013)0000021006.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

On the Measurement of the (Multidimensional) Inequality of Health Distributions

In: Health and Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Leth Hougaard
  • Juan D. Moreno-Ternero
  • Lars Peter Østerdal

Abstract

Health outcomes are often described according to two dimensions: quality of life and quantity of life. We analyze the measurement of inequality of health distributions referring to these two dimensions. Our analysis relies on a novel treatment of the quality-of-life dimension, which might not have a standard mathematical structure. We single out two families of (absolute and relative) multidimensional health inequality indices, inspired by the classical normative approach to income inequality measurement. We also discuss how to extend the analysis to deal with the related problem of health deprivation measurement in this setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Leth Hougaard & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2013. "On the Measurement of the (Multidimensional) Inequality of Health Distributions," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 111-129, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:reinzz:s1049-2585(2013)0000021006
    DOI: 10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006/full/epub?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec&title=10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/S1049-2585(2013)0000021006?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Drummond, Michael F. & Sculpher, Mark J. & Torrance, George W. & O'Brien, Bernie J. & Stoddart, Greg L., 2005. "Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 3, number 9780198529453, Decembrie.
    3. Abram Burk, 1936. "Real Income, Expenditure Proportionality, and Frisch's "New Methods of Measuring Marginal Utility"," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(1), pages 33-52.
    4. Blackorby,Charles & Bossert,Walter & Donaldson,David J., 2005. "Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521532587.
    5. Osterdal, Lars Peter, 2005. "Axioms for health care resource allocation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 679-702, July.
    6. Ravallion, Martin, 1996. "Issues in Measuring and Modelling Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1328-1343, September.
    7. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-523.
    8. FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2011. "Equity in health and health care," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011026, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Abul Naga, Ramses H. & Yalcin, Tarik, 2008. "Inequality measurement for ordered response health data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1614-1625, December.
    10. A. B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon, 1982. "The Comparison of Multi-Dimensioned Distributions of Economic Status," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(2), pages 183-201.
    11. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931, Decembrie.
    12. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-231, March.
    13. Robert A. Pollak, 1971. "Additive Utility Functions and Linear Engel Curves," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(4), pages 401-414.
    14. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 1986. "The Measurement and Decomposition of Multi-dimensional Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 991-997, July.
    17. Serge-Christophe Kolm, 1977. "Multidimensional Egalitarianisms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(1), pages 1-13.
    18. Williams, Alan & Cookson, Richard, 2000. "Equity in health," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 35, pages 1863-1910, Elsevier.
    19. Blakorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1980. "Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1053-1060, May.
    20. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. #HEJC papers for September 2013
      by academichealtheconomists in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2013-09-01 04:01:38

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2017. "A normative foundation for equity-sensitive health evaluation: The role of relative comparisons of health gains," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(5), pages 1009-1025, October.
    2. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2014. "Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions," DaCHE discussion papers 2014:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.

    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. Frank A Cowell & Martyna Kobus & Radoslaw Kurek, 2017. "Welfare and Inequality Comparisons for Uni- and Multi-dimensional Distributions of Ordinal Data," STICERD - Public Economics Programme Discussion Papers 31, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    2. John A. Weymark, 2003. "The Normative Approach to the Measurement of Multidimensional Inequality," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0314, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics, revised Jan 2004.
    3. Thibault Gajdos & John Weymark, 2005. "Multidimensional generalized Gini indices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(3), pages 471-496, October.
    4. Marcello Basili & Paulo Casaca & Alain Chateauneuf & Maurizio Franzini, 2017. "Multidimensional Pigou–Dalton transfers and social evaluation functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 573-590, December.
    5. Gravel, Nicolas & Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Ethically robust comparisons of bidimensional distributions with an ordinal attribute," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1384-1426.
    6. François Bourguignon & Satya R. Chakravarty, 2019. "The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty," Themes in Economics, in: Satya R. Chakravarty (ed.), Poverty, Social Exclusion and Stochastic Dominance, pages 83-107, Springer.
    7. MORENO-TERNERO, Juan & OSTERDAL, Lars P., 2014. "Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014031, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. 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.
    9. Koen Decancq & María Ana Lugo, 2009. "Measuring inequality of well-being with a correlation-sensitive multidimensional Gini index," Working Papers 124, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    10. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2006. "Ethically Robust Comparisons of Distributions of Two Individual Attributes," IDEP Working Papers 0605, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France, revised Aug 2006.
    11. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2017. "A normative foundation for equity-sensitive health evaluation: The role of relative comparisons of health gains," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(5), pages 1009-1025, October.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Morton, Alec, 2014. "Aversion to health inequalities in healthcare prioritisation: A multicriteria optimisation perspective," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 164-173.
    15. Francesco Andreoli & Claudio Zoli, 2020. "From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(1), pages 5-42, April.
    16. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2013. "Utilitarianism or welfarism: does it make a difference?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 529-551, February.
    17. Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2021. "Ranking distributions of an ordinal variable," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 33-80, February.
    18. Rolf Aaberge & Andrea Brandolini, 2014. "Multidimensional poverty and inequality," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 976, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Elisa Pagani, 2015. "Certainty Equivalent: Many Meanings of a Mean," Working Papers 24/2015, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    20. Joan Costa-Font & Frank A. Cowell, 2022. "The measurement of health inequalities: does status matter?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(2), pages 299-325, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; health; quantity of life; quality of life; QALYs; HYEs; D63; I14;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

    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:eme:reinzz:s1049-2585(2013)0000021006. 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.