BACKGROUND This paper examines an aspect of the problem of measuring inequality in health services. The measures that are commonly applied can be misleading because such measures obscure the difficulty in obtaining a complete ranking of distributions. The nature of the social welfare function underlying these measures is important. The overall object is to demonstrate that varying implications ...

INTRODUCTION Childhood vaccination rates in Manitoba populations with low socioeconomic status (SES) fall significantly below the provincial average. This study examined the impact of a pay-for-performance (P4P) program called the Physician Integrated Network (PIN) on health inequity in childhood vaccination rates. METHODS The study used administrative data housed at the Manitoba Centre for H...

BACKGROUND Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 is focused on reducing maternal mortality and achieving universal access to reproductive health care. India has made extensive efforts to achieve MDG 5 and in some regions much progress has been achieved. Progress has been uneven and inequitable however, and many women still lack access to maternal and reproductive health care. OBJECTIVE In this ...

The Canadian Health Measures Survey, conducted between March 2007 and February 2009, revealed unmet dental needs among older adults in Canada. This article, the second of a 3-part series, explains that the inequity in oral care faced by elderly Canadians is due largely to the current fee-for-service dental service system. However, the inequity has arisen because of financial, behavioural and ph...

Cooperation among individuals depends, in large part, on a sense of fairness. Many cooperating non-human primates (NHPs) show inequity aversion, (i.e., negative responses to unequal outcomes), and these responses toward inequity likely evolved as a means to preserve the advantages of cooperative relationships. However, marmosets (Callithrix spp.) tend to show little or no inequity aversion, des...

BACKGROUND Reducing within-country inequities in the coverage of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) interventions is essential to improving a country's maternal and child health and survival rates. The community-based health extension program (HEP) of Ethiopia, launched in 2003, aims to provide equitable primary health care services. Since 2008 the Last Ten Kilometers Project (L10K) has...

OBJECTIVE To explore use-inequity in maternal health-care services in home-based skilled-birth-attendant (SBA) programme areas in Bangladesh. METHODS Data from a community survey, conducted from February to May 2006, were analysed to examine inequities in use of SBAs, caesarean sections for deliveries and postnatal care services according to key socioeconomic factors. FINDINGS Of 2164 deliv...

BACKGROUND China has since the beginning of this millennium engaged in substantial Universal Health Coverage (UHC) reforms. This paper adds evidence on how equity in level of health service utilization changed after UHC reforms. METHODS Our study was based on household survey data from 30 counties in Sichuan province in 2004 and 2011. We introduce an unusual outcome variable, namely level of ...

INTRODUCTION This study assesses trends in horizontal equity in the utilization of healthcare services from 1998 to 2008--a period of major economic and social change in Brazil. METHODS Data are from nationally representative surveys repeated in 1998, 2003, and 2008. We apply established methods for assessing horizontal inequity in healthcare access (the principle that people with the same he...

conclusions in spite of improvements in the national health indicator, different groups of people use health care services differently, but these inequities in hcu are related to social and individual factors. also, it is clear that health sector facilities and the accessibility to health services are not the only predictors. results 66.4% of those in need sought outpatient health care from whi...