Abstract
This paper uses the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (1984-1985) data and the longitudinal follow-up of May 2003 to investigate the determinants of premature mortality in Great Britain and the contribution of lifestyle choices to socio-economic inequality in mortality. A behavioural model, which relates premature mortality to a set of observable and unobservable factors, is considered. A maximum simulated likelihood (MSL) approach for a multivariate probit (MVP) is used to estimate a recursive system of equations for mortality, morbidity and lifestyles. Health inequality is explored using the Gini coefficient and a decomposition technique. The decomposition analysis for predicted mortality shows that, after allowing for endogeneity, lifestyles contribute strongly to inequality in mortality, reducing the direct role of socio-economic status. This contradicts the view, which is widely held in epidemiology, that lifestyles make a relatively minor contribution to observed socio-economic gradients in health. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-26 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Journal of health economics |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2008 |
Bibliographical note
M1 - 1Keywords
- mortality
- lifestyle
- socio-economic status
- unobservable heterogeneity
- health inequality
- HEALTH INEQUALITIES
- PROBIT MODELS
- RISK
- EMPLOYMENT
- BEHAVIORS
- SMOKING