Explaining the Sources of IncomeRelated Inequality in Health Care Utilization in Denmark

Objectives with the health care system often include equity considerations. One objective is equal treatment for equal need. In this paper we explain the sources of income-related inequality in utilization of health care services in Funen County, Denmark, by linking survey data to register based data. A decomposition of the concentration index was used to explain the sources of overall income-related inequality in utilization. The decomposition approach suggests that health care is in general equally distributed in Denmark when need based variables are controlled for. However, this overall result is a consequence of a number of off-setting effects from different types of health care and a complicated pattern of various explanatory variables.