Ulf Gerdtham

Professor

Equity in the delivery of health care in Europe and the US

Författare

Eddy Van Doorslaer
Adam Wagstaff
Hattem Van Der Burg
Terkel Christiansen
Diana De Graeve
Inge Duchesne
Ulf G. Gerdtham
Michael Gerfin
José Geurts
Lorna Gross
Unto Häkkinen
Jürgen John
Jan Klavus
Robert E. Leu
Brian Nolan
Owen O'Donnell
Carol Propper
Frank Puffer
Martin Schellhorn
Gun Sundberg
Olaf Winkelhake

Summary, in English

This paper presents a comparison of horizontal equity in health care utilization in 10 European countries and the US. It does not only extend previous work by using more recent data from a larger set of countries, but also uses new methods and presents disaggregated results by various types of care. In all countries, the lower-income groups are more intensive users of the health care system. But after indirect standardization for need differences, there is little or no evidence of significant inequity in the delivery of health care overall, though in half of the countries, significant pro-rich inequity emerges for physician contacts. This seems to be due mainly to a higher use of medical specialist services by higher-income groups and a higher use of GP care among lower-income groups. These findings appear to be fairly general and emerge in countries with very diverse characteristics regarding access and provider incentives. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V.

Publiceringsår

2000-09-01

Språk

Engelska

Sidor

553-583

Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie

Journal of Health Economics

Volym

Issue

Länkar

Dokumenttyp