Equity in health care use among older people in the United Kingdom: an analysis of panel data

Abstract

This paper uses panel data to investigate the extent of income-related inequity in the likelihood of visiting a GP, specialist, dentist and hospital among individuals aged 65 and over in the United Kingdom. The probability of accessing health care is predicted with separate random effects probit panel models using data from the British Household Panel Survey for the period 1998-2006. We use well-established methods based on the concept of the concentration curve to compare the cumulative distribution of health care utilisation with the cumulative distribution of the population ranked by income. The results find evidence of inequity in specialist and dental care, but only slight inequity for GP care and not significant inequity in hospital admissions. Levels of inequity are highest for specialist and dental care, even when users of the private sector are excluded from analyses. The mobility index is also used to compare short- and lung-run estimates of inequities and shows that upwardly income mobile individuals contribute to inequity in the long run.