An analysis of income-related inequalities in the health care use by dynamic models

This paper aims to determine the explanatory factors of the income-related inequality in the health care utilisation by decomposition approach. The above method has been executed by a specification that can bear in mind the uncertainty of the patients about their self-assessed health and the habits or rigidities to accommodate their decisions. For this reason, two theoretical hypotheses have been imposed, adaptive expectations and partial adjustment, in order to base the formulation of dynamic models. Using the PHOGUE (1995-2001), the results show evidence of horizontal inequity favouring the poorest in the conditional number of GP visits and pro-rich inequity in the probability of specialist visits. In both cases, the inequity indexes decrease when the use of previous periods is considered.