including the expansion of national health insurance
coverage, health inequality has been a key health policy
issue in South Korea during the past decade. This study
describes and compares the extent of the total health
inequality and the income-related health inequality over
time among Korean adults.
Methods : This study employs the 1998, 2001 and 2005
Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys
(KNHANESs). The self-assessed health (SAH) ordinal
responses, measured on a five-point scale, rescaled to
cardinal values to measure the health inequalities with
using interval regression. The boundaries of each threshold
for the interval regression analysis were obtained from the
empirical distribution of the EuroQol-5 Dimension (EQ-5D)
valuation weights estimated from the 2005 KNHANES. The
final model predicting the individuals2health status
included age, gender, educational attainment, occupation,
income, and the regional prosperity index. The concentration
index was used to measure and analyze the health
inequality.
Results : The KNHANES data showed an unequal
distribution of the total health inequality in favor of the
higher income groups, and this is getting worse over time
(0.0327 in 1998, 0.0393 in 2001 and 0.0924 in 2005). The
income-related health inequality in 2005 was 0.0278,
indicating that 30.1% of the total health inequality can be
attributed to income.
Conclusions : The findings indicate there are health
inequalities across the sociodemographic and income
groups despite the recent government2s efforts. Further
research is warranted to investigate what potential policy
actions are necessary to decrease the health inequality in
Korea.