Determinants of ill health in Uganda : is it just the wealthy that are more healthy?

This paper adopts a reduced form demand approach to analyse the key determinants influencing the health status of individuals in Uganda. In particular, we examine the importance of wealth, relative to other key determinants, and by employing both self reported and anthropometric sickness measures, are able to provide direct insights into the robus tness of such results. After controlling for endogeneity we find that increased wealth is strongly associated with increased health status, especially for pre-school aged children, but other factors are potentially as important. In particular, and in line with growing empirical evidence, children born later than older brothers and sisters are more likely to be sick, as are those using unprotected water sources. We also find suggestions of serious reporting bias with the reported illness variables for children, raising questions regarding the reliability of such data and promoting a multiplicity based approach to representing health status for future empirical analysis.