Dear Colleague,
A very good morning from historic Bury St Edmunds.
Today’s CMAJ has published an interesting study which reports inequity in
doctor utilization by income after adjusting for need. The dada are drawn
from various surveys under taken in 21 OECD countries. The authors found
that in all countries for which data are available, after controlling for
need differences, people with higher incomes are significantly more likely
to see a specialist than people with lower incomes and, in most countries,
also more frequently.
However UK was an exception. The inequity in access to care for the UK
population was not significantly different from 0 measured by horizontal
inequity index. They point out that “this is in sharp contrast to the strong
pro-rich inequity in specialist use found earlier using the 1996 ECHP”. This
study shows that over the last 10 years inequity in access to care has
greatly reduced in the UK and UK shows less inequity than other countries.
Although the methodology is complex I found the paper interesting. Full free
text available @ http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/174/2/177.pdf
Warm regards & very best wishes,
Badri
Dr.P.Badrinath MD, BS, M.Phil, MPH, PhD (Cantab), MFPH
Consultant in Public Health & Affiliated Clinical Lecturer,
Suffolk West PCT & University of Cambridge, UK
http://myprofile.cos.com/badrishanthi
Disclaimer: The above views are my own and not that of my employing
organisations.
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