IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/lunewp/2011_021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining socioeconomic inequalities in drug utilization for Sweden 2005-2006: Evidence from linked survey and register data

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This study uses the Swedish register of prescribed drugs, merged with the Survey of Living Conditions (the ULF), to analyze the socioeconomic gradient in drug utilization. It finds a significant education gradient (but no income gradient) in individual drug utilization. Whereas the education gradient for men is quantitative in its orientation (education affects number of drugs used), the gradient for women is both quantitative and qualitative (education affects mean cost of drugs). For males, but not as clearly for females, the study finds that the education gradient is weaker for more health-related drugs but stronger for more expensive drugs. Our results indicate that the main reason for the education gradient in drug utilization is doctors’ behaviour rather than compliance with medication and affordability of drugs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nordin , Martin & Dackehag , Margareta & Gerdtham, Ulf-G, 2011. "Explaining socioeconomic inequalities in drug utilization for Sweden 2005-2006: Evidence from linked survey and register data," Working Papers 2011:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2011_021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://project.nek.lu.se/publications/workpap/papers/WP11_21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    health inequality; healthcare; drug utilization; income; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    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:hhs:lunewp:2011_021. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Prakriti Thami (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delunse.html .

    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.