Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status.
This paper uses the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (1984-1985) data and the longitudinal follow-up of May 2003 to investigate the determinants of premature mortality in Great Britain and the contribution of lifestyle choices to socio-economic inequality in mortality. A behavioural model, which relates premature mortality to a set of observable and unobservable factors, is considered. A maximum simulated likelihood (MSL) approach for a multivariate probit (MVP) is used to estimate a recursive system of equations for mortality, morbidity and lifestyles. Health inequality is explored using the Gini coefficient and a decomposition technique. The decomposition analysis for predicted mortality shows that, after allowing for endogeneity, lifestyles contribute strongly to inequality in mortality, reducing the direct role of socio-economic status. This contradicts the view, which is widely held in epidemiology, that lifestyles make a relatively minor contribution to observed socio-economic gradients in health.
Balia
Silvia
S
Dipartimento di Ricerche Economiche e Sociali, Universitá di Cagliari, viale S Ignazio, Cagliari, Italy. silvia.balia@unica.it
Jones
Andrew M
AM
D015438:Health Behavior; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D017059:Models, Econometric; D009026:Mortality; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology