title: Longitudinal analysis of income-related health inequalities: methods, challenges and applications.
abstract: Socioeconomic inequalities in health are an important research area in health economics and public health. The concentration index has become a well-established measure of income-related health inequalities, and a number of approaches to identify potential causes of health inequalities exist. With the increasing availability of suitable longitudinal data, more sophisticated approaches to monitor inequalities and to identify potential causal relationships between socioeconomic status and health evolved. We first review the concentration index and some more basic approaches to explain health inequalities. We then discuss advantages and potential shortcomings of "static" and "dynamic" health inequality measures. We review different concepts of health and socioeconomic mobility, as well as recent studies on the life course perspective and economic changes. Our aim is to provide an overview of the concepts and empirical methodologies in the current literature, and to guide interested researchers in their choice of an appropriate inequality measure.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Health Care Management , Technische Universität Berlin , Berlin , Germany.|b Berlin Centre of Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR) , Berlin , Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Siegel
authors.affiliation: c Economic Studies , University of Dundee , Dundee , UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Allanson
mesh_terms: D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D011634:Public Health / Q000191:economics*; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: concentration index; health inequalities; health-related income mobility; income-related health mobility; life course perspective; longitudinal analyses; social and economic change