Socio-economic health inequality indices: A fuzzy approach applied to European countries

Abstract

This chapter presents a multi-dimensional socio-economic health inequality index, with a rank-dependent structure, based on fuzzy-set theory. Risk factors are analysed through the prism of equality of opportunity. The literature distinguishes between fair and unfair causes of health inequalities. Synthetic indicators of health are constructed following the methodology based on fuzzy sets proposed by Pi Alperin. In particular, three dimensions belong to the mental health aspect and six dimensions are part of the physical health. In order to perform the empirical application over European countries, people compute achievement curves over the nine dimensions of health deprivation and one risk factor. The advantage of dealing with such a family of indexes is to simulate the behaviour of the social planner in two ways: his/her ability to perform income transfers to improve health achievement, and his/her sensibility to the exogenous risk factor.