IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v11y2002i3p207-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the empirical association between poor health and low socioeconomic status at old age

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Salas

Abstract

Epidemiologic studies using mortality rates as indicators of health fail to find any meaningful association between poor health and low socioeconomic status in older age‐groups, whereas economic studies using self‐assessed health consistently find a significant positive correlation, even after controlling for self‐reporting errors. Such contradictory results have not been reported for working age individuals. A simple explanation might be that the elderly samples on which the epidemiologic and economic studies are based come from different populations. However, this paper shows that similar contradictory results are obtained even when the same samples are used, simply by switching between self‐assessed health and mortality as health indicators. An alternative explanation is proposed, namely that these health indicators yield different results because they relate to different ranges of the latent health variable at old age. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Salas, 2002. "On the empirical association between poor health and low socioeconomic status at old age," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(3), pages 207-220, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:11:y:2002:i:3:p:207-220
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.663
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.663?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Posner, B.M. & Jette, A.M. & Smith, K.W. & Miller, D.R., 1993. "Nutrition and health risks in the elderly: The nutrition screening initiative," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 83(7), pages 972-978.
    2. Donald S. Kenkel, 1995. "Should you eat breakfast? Estimates from health production functions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(1), pages 15-29, January.
    3. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February.
    4. Guralnik, J.M. & Kaplan, G.A., 1989. "Predictors of healthy aging: Prospective evidence from the Alameda County Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 79(6), pages 703-708.
    5. Jette, A.M. & Feldman, H.A. & Tennstedt, S.L., 1993. "Tobacco use: A modifiable risk factor for dental disease among the elderly," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 83(9), pages 1271-1276.
    6. Sickles, Robin C & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "An Analysis of the Health and Retirement Status of the Elderly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1339-1356, November.
    7. Burton, L.C. & Steinwachs, D.M. & German, P.S. & Shapiro, S. & Brant, L.J. & Richards, T.M. & Clark, R.D., 1995. "Preventive services for the elderly: Would coverage affect utilization and costs under Medicare?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 85(3), pages 387-391.
    8. Mirand, A.L. & Welte, J.W., 1996. "Alcohol consumption among the elderly in a general population, Erie County, New York," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 86(7), pages 978-984.
    9. Kaplan, G.A. & Seeman, T.E. & Cohen, R.D. & Knudsen, L.P. & Guralnik, J., 1987. "Mortality among the elderly in the Alameda County study: Behavioral and demographic risk factors," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 77(3), pages 307-312.
    10. German, P.S. & Burton, L.C. & Shapiro, S. & Steinwachs, D.M. & Tsuji, I. & Paglia, M.J. & Damiano, A.M., 1995. "Extended coverage for preventive services for the elderly: Response and results in a demonstration population," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 85(3), pages 379-386.
    11. Lubben, J.E. & Weiler, P.G. & Chi, I., 1989. "Health practices of the elderly poor," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 79(6), pages 731-734.
    12. Paganini-Hill, A. & Hsu, G., 1994. "Smoking and mortality among residents of a California retirement community," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(6), pages 992-995.
    13. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    14. Escarce, J.J. & Epstein, K.R. & Colby, D.C. & Schwartz, J.S., 1993. "Racial differences in the elderly's use of medical procedures and diagnostic tests," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 83(7), pages 948-954.
    15. Roos, N.P. & Havens, B., 1991. "Predictors of successful aging: A twelve-year study of Manitoba elderly," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 81(1), pages 63-68.
    16. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    17. Guralnik, J.M. & LaCroix, A.Z. & Branch, L.G. & Kasl, S.V. & Wallace, R.B., 1991. "Morbidity and disability in older persons in the years prior to death," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 81(4), pages 443-447.
    18. Adam Wagstaff, 1993. "The demand for health: An empirical reformulation of the Grossman model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(2), pages 189-198, July.
    19. Hollenbach, K.A. & Barrett-Connor, E. & Edelstein, S.L. & Holbrook, T., 1993. "Cigarette smoking and bone mineral density in older men and women," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 83(9), pages 1265-1270.
    20. Haynes, Robin, 1991. "Inequalities in health and health service use: Evidence from the general household survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 361-368, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manoj K. Pandey, 2013. "Elderly's Health Shocks and Household's Ex-ante Poverty in India," ASARC Working Papers 2013-01, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    2. Paul Contoyannis & Andrew M. Jones & Nigel Rice, 2004. "The dynamics of health in the British Household Panel Survey," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 473-503.
    3. Lurås, Hilde, 2009. "A healthy lifestyle: The product of opportunities and preferences," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2001:11, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    4. Cai, Lixin, 2010. "The relationship between health and labour force participation: Evidence from a panel data simultaneous equation model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 77-90, January.
    5. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2004. "Health Status and Labour Force Participation: Evidence from the HILDA Data," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n04, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    6. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Aizawa, Toshiaki & Helble, Matthias, 2015. "Health and Home Ownership: Findings for the Case of Japan," ADBI Working Papers 525, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    8. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2007. "Health status and labour force status of older working-age Australian men," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 227-252.
    9. Tian, Wei-Hua & Chen, Chin-Shyan & Liu, Tsai-Ching, 2010. "The demand for preventive care services and its relationship with inpatient services," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 164-174, February.
    10. Antonio Clavero Barranquero & Mª. Luz González Alvarez, 2005. "A survey of econometric models to analyze the demand and utilisation of health care," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 173(2), pages 129-162, June.
    11. Manoj K. Pandey, 2009. "Poverty and Disability among Indian Elderly: Evidence from Household Survey," ASARC Working Papers 2009-10, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    12. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2006. "Health status and labour force participation: evidence from Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 241-261, March.
    13. Grossman, Michael, 2006. "Education and Nonmarket Outcomes," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 577-633, Elsevier.
    14. David Cantarero & Marta Pascual & Jose Maria Sarabia, 2004. "Can income inequality contribute to understand inequalities in health? An empirical approach based on the European Community Household Panel," ERSA conference papers ersa04p230, European Regional Science Association.
    15. Lo, Te-Fen & Hsieh, Chee-Ruey, 2013. "Dynamic profile of health investment and the evolution of elderly health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 134-142.
    16. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim, 2017. "Education Effects on Days Hospitalized and Days out of Work by Gender: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 11210, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Yuri Reina-Aranza, 2015. "Violencia de pareja y estado de salud de la mujer en Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 13964, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    18. Galama, Titus & Kapteyn, Arie, 2011. "Grossman’s missing health threshold," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1044-1056.
    19. R Todd Jewell & Maximo Rossi & Patricia Triunfo, 2006. "El Estado de Salud de los Jóvenes Uruguayos," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 43(128), pages 235-250.
    20. Cédric Afsa & Pauline Givord, 2009. "Le rôle des conditions de travail dans les absences pour maladie : le cas des horaires irréguliers," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 187(1), pages 83-103.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:11:y:2002:i:3:p:207-220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.