IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v16y2007i9p929-944.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using relative distributions to investigate the body mass index in England and Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Contoyannis
  • John Wildman

Abstract

In this paper we use relative distributions to examine changes in the distribution of the body mass index (BMI) in England and Canada during the period 1994/5–2000/1. The use of relative distributions allows us to describe changes in the whole distribution of the BMI in a non‐parametric fashion. While statistics analogous to the Gini index can be constructed based on the relative distribution, important characteristics of changes in the distribution of the BMI such as changes in the proportions overweight and obese are more naturally handled using measures of relative polarization. Our results show that while BMI has increased in both countries, BMI in England has increased at a much faster rate than in Canada. Both groups show polarization over time towards both tails of the weight distribution, with the English polarizing towards the upper tail at a faster rate than Canadians. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Contoyannis & John Wildman, 2007. "Using relative distributions to investigate the body mass index in England and Canada," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(9), pages 929-944, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:16:y:2007:i:9:p:929-944
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1240
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1240?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. Andrew M. Jones (ed.), 2006. "The Elgar Companion to Health Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3572, March.
    2. Anderson, Gordon, 2004. "Toward an empirical analysis of polarization," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 1-26, September.
    3. Levy, Frank & Murnane, Richard J, 1992. "U.S. Earnings Levels and Earnings Inequality: A Review of Recent Trends and Proposed Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1333-1381, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rudoler, David & Laporte, Audrey & Barnsley, Janet & Glazier, Richard H. & Deber, Raisa B., 2015. "Paying for primary care: A cross-sectional analysis of cost and morbidity distributions across primary care payment models in Ontario Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 18-28.
    2. Font, Joan Costa & Fabbri, Daniele & Gil, Joan, 2010. "Decomposing cross-country differences in levels of obesity and overweight: Does the social environment matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1185-1193, April.
    3. Alex Proshin & Lise Rochaix & Adrian Rohit Dass & Audrey Laporte, 2020. "Impact of Quality-based Procedures on orthopedic care quantity and quality in Ontario Hospitals," PSE Working Papers halshs-02872219, HAL.
    4. Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel & Robone, Silvana & Dias, Pedro Rosa, 2011. "Inequality and polarisation in health systems' responsiveness: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 616-625, July.
    5. Vijayasivajie, Anushiya & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik & Heaton, Chris, 2023. "An investigation of body mass distributional changes in Australia, 1995–2017/18," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    6. Joan Costa-Font & Daniele Fabbri & Joan Gil, 2008. "Decomposing Cross-Country Gaps in Obesity and Overweight: Does the Social Environment Matter?," Working Papers in Economics 205, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    7. En‐Ze Wang & Chien‐Chiang Lee, 2023. "Foreign direct investment, income inequality and country risk," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 2415-2435, July.
    8. Nie, Peng & Ding, Lanlin & Jones, Andrew M., 2020. "Inequality of Opportunity in Bodyweight among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese: A Distributional Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 13421, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Costa-Font, Joan & Fabbri, Daniele & Gil, Joan, 2009. "Decomposing body mass index gaps between Mediterranean countries: A counterfactual quantile regression analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 351-365, December.
    10. Etile, Fabrice, 2014. "Education policies and health inequalities: Evidence from changes in the distribution of Body Mass Index in France, 1981–2003," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 46-65.
    11. Judith A. Clarke & Ahmed A. Hoque, 2014. "On Variance Estimation for a Gini Coefficient Estimator Obtained from Complex Survey Data," Econometrics Working Papers 1401, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    12. Nie, Peng & Ding, Lanlin & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2019. "Obesity inequality and the changing shape of the bodyweight distribution in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    13. Luis Fernando Gamboa & Nohora Y. Forero Ramírez, 2009. "Body mass index as a standard of living measure: a different interpretation for the case of Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 5218, Universidad del Rosario.
    14. Jamie Spinney & Hugh Millward, 2010. "Time and Money: A New Look at Poverty and the Barriers to Physical Activity in Canada," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(2), pages 341-356, November.
    15. Alicja Grze?kowiak, 2020. "Soft skills and earnings: evidence from a nationwide survey in Poland," International Journal of Economic Sciences, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 9(1), pages 102-120, June.

    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. Mogues, Tewodaj, 2008. "A two-dimensional measure of polarization:," IFPRI discussion papers 837, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Eric French & Elaine Kelly & Richard Cookson & Carol Propper & Miqdad Asaria & Rosalind Raine, 2016. "Socio‐Economic Inequalities in Health Care in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 37, pages 371-403, September.
    3. Noemi Kreif & Richard Grieve & Rosalba Radice & Zia Sadique & Roland Ramsahai & Jasjeet S. Sekhon, 2012. "Methods for Estimating Subgroup Effects in Cost-Effectiveness Analyses That Use Observational Data," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 32(6), pages 750-763, November.
    4. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2009. "Using The P90/P10 Index To Measure U.S. Inequality Trends With Current Population Survey Data: A View From Inside The Census Bureau Vaults," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 166-185, March.
    5. Sammartino, Frank & Weiner, David, 1997. "Recent Evidence on Taxpayers' Response to the Rate Increases in the 1990s," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(3), pages 683-705, September.
    6. Rey, Sergio, 2015. "Bells in Space: The Spatial Dynamics of US Interpersonal and Interregional Income Inequality," MPRA Paper 69482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Luchini & Christophe Muller & Erik Schokkaert, 2013. "Equivalent Income And Fair Evaluation Of Health Care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 711-729, June.
    8. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Joseph E. Zveglich Jr. & Yana van der Meulen Rodgers & William M. Rodgers III, 1997. "The Persistence of Gender Earnings Inequality in Taiwan, 1978–1992," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 50(4), pages 594-609, July.
    10. Meyer, Sophie-Charlotte, 2016. "Maternal employment and childhood overweight in Germany," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 84-102.
    11. Flachaire, Emmanuel & Nunez, Olivier, 2007. "Estimation of the income distribution and detection of subpopulations: An explanatory model," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 3368-3380, April.
    12. Slemrod, Joel, 1998. "Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 4), pages 773-88, December.
    13. Attanasio, Orazio & Davis, Steven J, 1996. "Relative Wage Movements and the Distribution of Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1227-1262, December.
    14. Bethany Everett & David Rehkopf & Richard Rogers, 2013. "The Nonlinear Relationship Between Education and Mortality: An Examination of Cohort, Race/Ethnic, and Gender Differences," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(6), pages 893-917, December.
    15. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    16. Casanova, Luis. & Alejo, Javier., 2015. "El efecto de la negociación colectiva sobre la distribución de los ingresos laborales evidencia empírica para Argentina en los años dos mil," ILO Working Papers 994875473402676, International Labour Organization.
    17. David Figlio & Jens Ludwig, 2012. "Sex, Drugs, and Catholic Schools: Private Schooling and Non-Market Adolescent Behaviors," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 13(4), pages 385-415, November.
    18. Verdugo, G. & Fraisse, H. & Horny, G., 2012. "Changes In Wage Inequality In France: The Impact Of Composition Effects (in French)," Working papers 370, Banque de France.
    19. Liu, Shen & Maharaj, Elizabeth Ann & Inder, Brett, 2014. "Polarization of forecast densities: A new approach to time series classification," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 345-361.
    20. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 1997. "Jobs, Workers and Changes in Earnings Dispersion," CEPR Discussion Papers 1714, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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:16:y:2007:i:9:p:929-944. 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.