The study integrates two methodologies so that income-related inequality in general health can be decomposed into contributions from socio-demographic characteristics to each of the dimensions defining general health. It is found that these relative contributions vary substantially across...

The most important reform in Finnish health care in the last decade occurred at the beginning of 1993 as part of a broader change to the entire state subsidy system. This reform reduced central government control and increased the freedom of the municipalities in the provision of health...

In this study we used stochastic frontier cost functions to estimate the teaching and research costs of Finnish hospitals. Average and marginal cost estimates were used to evaluate the current reimbursement system as well as to calculate the total expenditure on teaching and research in...

We explore the determinants of dental ill-health as measured by the occurrence of caries. A recursive bivariate probit model that was derived from health production and demand theory is employed to model caries, while taking account of dental care use. The data are from a follow-up questionnaire...

Health surveys often include a general question on self-assessed health (SAH), usually measured on an ordinal scale with three to five response categories, from 'very poor' or 'poor' to 'very good' or 'excellent'. This paper assesses the scaling of responses on the SAH question. It compares...

This was a longitudinal, general population study based on a Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort, using a structural equation approach to estimate the health production function and health input functions for four lifestyle variables (smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise and unhealthy diet) for...

The authors consider the association between productive efficiency and clinical quality in institutional long-term care for the elderly. Cross-sectional data were collected from 122 wards in health-centre hospitals and residential homes in Finland in 2001. Productive efficiency was measured in...