IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2015-027.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Poor Health Reporting: Do Poor South Africans Underestimate Their Health Needs?

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Rossouw

Abstract

Researchers often rely on household survey data to investigate health disparities and the incidence and prevalence of illness. These self-reported health measures are often biased due to information asymmetry or differences in reference groups. Using the World Health Organization study on global ageing and adult health, I find that the poor use a different reporting scale from the more affluent, leading to overestimation of their health status. This is tested by using the relatively novel anchoring vignettes approach and applying the hierarchical ordered probit model.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Rossouw, 2015. "Poor Health Reporting: Do Poor South Africans Underestimate Their Health Needs?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-027, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2015-027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2015-027.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, A., 2007. "Applied Econometrics for Health Economists: A Practical Guide," Monographs, Office of Health Economics, number 000262.
    2. repec:cup:apsrev:v:98:y:2004:i:01:p:191-207_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Humphries, Karin H. & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2000. "Income-related health inequality in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 663-671, March.
    4. Franco Peracchi & Claudio Rossetti, 2009. "Gender and regional differences in self-rated health in Europe," CEIS Research Paper 142, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 30 Sep 2009.
    5. Lindeboom, Maarten & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2004. "Cut-point shift and index shift in self-reported health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1083-1099, November.
    6. Cristina Hernandez-Quevedo & Andrew M Jones & Nigel Rice, "undated". "Reporting Bias and Heterogeneity in Self-Assessed Health. Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Discussion Papers 04/18, Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. Lunde, Lene & Løken, Katrine Vellesen, 2011. "“How are you feeling?” Assessing reporting bias in a subjective measure of health by quantile regression," Working Papers in Economics 08/11, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    8. Beegle, Kathleen & Himelein, Kristen & Ravallion, Martin, 2012. "Frame-of-reference bias in subjective welfare," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 556-570.
    9. Litvack, Jennie I. & Bodart, Claude, 1993. "User fees plus quality equals improved access to health care: Results of a field experiment in Cameroon," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 369-383, August.
    10. Teresa Bago d’Uva & Maarten Lindeboom & Owen O’Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2011. "Slipping Anchor?: Testing the Vignettes Approach to Identification and Correction of Reporting Heterogeneity," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(4), pages 875-906.
    11. Fabrice Etilé & Carine Milcent, 2006. "Income‐related reporting heterogeneity in self‐assessed health: evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 965-981, September.
    12. King, Gary & Wand, Jonathan, 2007. "Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: Evaluating and Selecting Anchoring Vignettes," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 46-66, January.
    13. Sauerborn, R. & Adams, A. & Hien, M., 1996. "Household strategies to cope with the economic costs of illness," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 291-301, August.
    14. Manning, Willard G, et al, 1987. "Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 251-277, June.
    15. Fabrice Etilé & Carine Milcent, 2006. "Income-related reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health: evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 965-981.
    16. Vera-Hernandez, Marcos, 2003. "Structural Estimation of a Principal-Agent Model: Moral Hazard in Medical Insurance," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 670-693, Winter.
    17. Ronelle Burger & Caryn Bredenkamp & Christelle Grobler & Servaas van der Berg, 2012. "Have public health spending and access in South Africa become more equitable since the end of apartheid?," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5), pages 681-703, December.
    18. Ataguba, John Ele-Ojo & McIntyre, Di, 2013. "Who benefits from health services in South Africa?," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 21-46, January.
    19. Myer, Landon & Stein, Dan J. & Grimsrud, Anna & Seedat, Soraya & Williams, David R., 2008. "Social determinants of psychological distress in a nationally-representative sample of South African adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1828-1840, April.
    20. Sauerborn, R. & Nougtara, A. & Hien, M. & Diesfeld, H. J., 1996. "Seasonal variations of household costs of illness in Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 281-290, August.
    21. Jennifer Beam Dowd & Megan Todd, 2011. "Does Self-reported Health Bias the Measurement of Health Inequalities in U.S. Adults? Evidence Using Anchoring Vignettes From the Health and Retirement Study," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 66(4), pages 478-489.
    22. Ren Mu, 2014. "Regional Disparities In Self‐Reported Health: Evidence From Chinese Older Adults," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 529-549, May.
    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. Laura Rossouw, 2015. "Poor health reporting: Do poor South Africans underestimate their health needs?," WIDER Working Paper Series 027, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Laura Rossouw & Teresa Bago d’Uva & Eddy Doorslaer, 2018. "Poor Health Reporting? Using Anchoring Vignettes to Uncover Health Disparities by Wealth and Race," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1935-1956, October.
    3. Laura Rossouw & Teresa Bago d'Uva & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2017. "Poor Health Reporting? Using Vignettes to Recover the Health Gradient by Wealth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-031/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Maarten Lindeboom & Owen O'Donnell, 2008. "Does reporting heterogeneity bias the measurement of health disparities?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 351-375, March.
    5. Ivan Cipin & Sime Smolic, 2013. "Socio-Economic Determinants of Health in Croatia: Insights from Four Cross-Sectional Surveys," Croatian Economic Survey, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, vol. 15(1), pages 25-60, April.
    6. Irina, Mozhaeva, 2009. "Multidimensional health modeling: Association between socioeconomic and psychosocial factors and health in Latvia," MPRA Paper 34634, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Aug 2010.
    7. Teresa Molina, 2016. "Reporting Heterogeneity and Health Disparities Across Gender and Education Levels: Evidence From Four Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(2), pages 295-323, April.
    8. Pfarr, Christian & Schmid, Andreas & Schneider, Udo, 2011. "Reporting Heterogeneity in Self-Assessed Health among Elderly Europeans: The Impact of Mental and Physical Health Status," MPRA Paper 29900, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kaneva, Maria & Baidin, Valerii, 2018. "Heterogeneity in reporting self-assessed health of the Russians," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 51, pages 102-125.
    10. Udo Schneider & Christian Pfarr & Brit Schneider & Volker Ulrich, 2012. "I feel good! Gender differences and reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(3), pages 251-265, June.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13753 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ziebarth, Nicolas, 2010. "Measurement of health, health inequality, and reporting heterogeneity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 116-124, July.
    13. Florence Jusot & Sabine Mage & Marta Menendez, 2014. "Inequality of Opportunity in Health in Indonesia," Working Papers DT/2014/06, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    14. Valerii Baidin & Christopher J. Gerry & Maria Kaneva, 2021. "How Self-Rated is Self-Rated Health? Exploring the Role of Individual and Institutional Factors in Reporting Heterogeneity in Russia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 675-696, June.
    15. Au, N. & Johnston, D. W., 2013. "An econometric analysis of self-assessed health: what does it mean and what is it hiding?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 13/31, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    16. Gabriella Berloffa & Francesca Paolini, 2019. "Decomposing Immigrant Differences in Physical and Mental Health: A 'Beyond the Mean' Analysis," DEM Working Papers 2019/4, Department of Economics and Management.
    17. Fontaine, Xavier & Haywood, Luke, 2018. "On the comparison of group inequalities using subjective data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 17-21.
    18. David Johnston & Carol Propper & Stephen Pudney & Michael Shields, 2014. "Child Mental Health And Educational Attainment: Multiple Observers And The Measurement Error Problem," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 880-900, September.
    19. Bonsang, Eric & Caroli, Eve & Garrouste, Clémentine, 2021. "Gender heterogeneity in self-reported hypertension," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    20. Corrado, L. & Weeks, M., 2010. "Identification Strategies in Survey Response Using Vignettes," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1031, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    21. Aparajita Dasgupta, 2018. "Systematic measurement error in self-reported health: is anchoring vignettes the way out?," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-30, December.

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2015-027. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    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.