Socio-economic determinants of health in Croatia: Insights from four cross-sectional surveys

Examinning the relationship between individual health and certain demographic and economic determinants

The main goal of the paper is to exploit several cross-sectional socio-economic data sets available in Croatia to examine the extent to which individual health is related to certain demographic and economic determinants. In explaining health determinants, self-assessed health (SAH) was used as a measure of health on the individual level. Self-assessed health (SAH) is measured on an ordinal 5-point Likert-type scale. The authors apply ordinal logit model which is common in the literature for such type of data. Technically, this model constitutes a linear econometric regression with the left-hand side being the log-probability of a particular self-assessed health grade and with the right-hand side being linear combination of different determinants with coefficients to be estimated.

The authors conclude that controlling for age and other socio-demographic characteristics, education was seen as the single most important determinant of better health. Poor health on the individual level is probably highly correlated with low education and lowest income levels. Public policy-makers should be aware that measures targeted at vulnerable population subgroups might be effective at improving health in the population. However, the identification of a causal relationship between health outcome and its determinants is of crucial importance in the design of future policies. 

Last updated Monday, May 13, 2013