title: Measuring inequalities in health in the presence of multiple-category morbidity indicators.
abstract: This paper considers the problems which arise in seeking to measure socioeconomic inequalities in health when the health indicator is a categorical variable, such as self-assessed health. It shows that the standard approach--which involves dichotomizing the categorical variable--is unreliable. The degree of measured inequality is found to depend on the cut-off point chosen and the choice of cut-off point to affect the conclusions one can reach about trends in or differences in health inequality. The paper goes on to propose an alternative approach which involves constructing a latent health variable and then measuring inequalities in this latent variable by means of a variant of the health concentration curve.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wagstaff
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van Doorslaer
mesh_terms: D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003710:Demography; D015276:Health Care Rationing; D006302:Health Services Research; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D016015:Logistic Models; D009017:Morbidity; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009426:Netherlands; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors