BACKGROUND Tobacco consumption has been identified as the single biggest cause of inequality in morbidity and mortality. Understanding pattern of socioeconomic equalities in tobacco consumption in India will help in designing targeted public health control measures. MATERIALS AND METHODS Nationally representative data from the India Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) conducted in 2009-2010 wa...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Most studies on health inequalities use average measures, but describing the distribution of health can also provide valuable knowledge. In this paper, we estimate and compare within-group and between-group inequalities in length of life for population groups in Ethiopia in 2000 and 2011. METHODS We used data from the 2011 and 2000 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Sur...

BACKGROUND This study explores the relationship between BMI and national-wealth and the cross-level interaction effect of national-wealth and individual household-wealth using multilevel analysis. METHODS Data from the World Health Survey conducted in 2002-2004, across 70 low-, middle- and high-income countries was used. Participants aged 18 years and over were selected using multistage, stra...

This paper analyses the effect of wealth status on care-seeking patterns and health expenditures in Afghanistan, based on a national household survey conducted within public health facility catchment areas. We found high rates of reported care-seeking, with more than 90% of those ill seeking care. Sick individuals from all wealth quintiles had high rates of care-seeking, although those in the w...

INTRODUCTION Little rigorous evidence exists on how health service utilization varies across socioeconomic groups after a user fee exemption policy has been implemented, and the evidence that does exist is mixed. In this paper, we estimate the distribution of caesarean section deliveries across socioeconomic groups following Mali's implementation of a fee exemption policy for caesareans in 2005...

A large body of survey research offers evidence that citizens are not always fully aware of the economic and political realities in their respective countries. Norton and Ariely (2011) extended this research to the domain of wealth inequality, showing that Americans were surprisingly unaware of the shape of the wealth distribution in America. Using an alternative methodology, Eriksson and Simps...

BACKGROUND Access to improved sanitation plays an important role in child health through its impact on diarrheal mortality and malnutrition. Inequities in sanitation coverage translate into health inequities across socio-economic groups. This paper presents the differential impact on child mortality and diarrheal incidence of expanding sanitation coverage across wealth quintiles in Nepal. MET...

BACKGROUND In the absence of planned efforts to target the poor, child survival programs often favour the rich. Further evidence is needed urgently about which interventions and programme approaches are most effective in addressing inequities. The Lives Saved Tool (LiST) is available and can be used to model mortality levels across economic groups based on coverage levels for child survival int...

This paper examines the trends in utilization of five indicators of reproductive and child health services, namely, childhood immunization, medical assistance at delivery, antenatal care, contraceptive use and unmet need for contraception, by wealth index of the household in India and two disparate states, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The data from three rounds of the National Family and Heal...