title: Decomposing socioeconomic inequalities in self assessed health in Turkey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study aimed to measure socioeconomic inequalities in Self Assessed Health (SAH) and evaluate the determinants of such inequalities in terms of their contributions amongst the Turkish population.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used data from the Turkish part of World Health Survey 2003 with 10,287 respondents over 18 years old. Concentration index (CI) of SAH was calculated as a measure of socioeconomic inequalities in health, and contributions of each determinant to inequality were evaluated using a decomposition method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total 952 participants (9.3%) rated their health status as either bad or very bad. The CI for SAH was -0.15, suggesting that suboptimal SAH was reported more by those categorised as poor. The multiple logistic regression results indicated that having secondary, primary or less than primary school education, not being married and being in the lowest wealth quintile, significantly increased the risk of having poor SAH. The largest contributions to inequality were attributed to education level (70.7%), household economic status (9.7%) and geographical area lived in (8.4%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings indicate that socioeconomic inequalities measured by SAH are apparent amongst the Turkish population. Education and household wealth were the greatest contributing factors to SAH inequality. These inequalities need to be explicitly addressed and vulnerable subgroups should be targeted to reduce the socioeconomic disparities.
authors.affiliation: Narlidere Community Health Center, Ministry of Health of Turkey, Izmir, Narlıdere, Turkey. drmelihkaan@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Kaan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sözmen
authors.forename: Hakan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Baydur
authors.forename: Hatice
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Simsek
authors.forename: Belgin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ünal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult