Journal
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 70, Issue 2, Pages 251-260Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.10.001
Keywords
UK; USA; Health inequalities; Mixture latent Markov models; Socioeconomic inequalities; Health change; Self-rated health (SRH)
Funding
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/G002452/1, RES-518-28-5001] Funding Source: researchfish
- ESRC [ES/G002452/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research [PPR-79227] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Drawing on theory and research on the fundamental causes of health, the life course, and the welfare state, we investigate social inequalities in dynamic self-rated health for working-aged Britons and Americans. We use data from the British Household Panel Survey and Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1990-2004) and a mixture latent Markov model to test a theoretical model of health as a discrete state that may remain stable or change over time. Our contributions are threefold. First, our finding of three distinctive types of health processes (stable good health, stable poor health, and a mover health trajectory) represents a more differentiated profile of long-term health than previously shown Second., we characterize health trajectories in structural terms by suggesting who was more likely to experience what type of health trajectory. Third, our more differentiated picture of dynamic health leads to a more nuanced understanding of comparative health: Although the health advantage of Britons was confirmed, our results also indicate that they were more likely to experience health change. Moreover the socio, economic gradient in long-term health was steeper in the US, raising provocative questions about how state policies and practices may affect population health. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available