Smith, CL;
Anthony, S;
Hubank, M;
Leiper, JM;
Vallance, P;
(2005)
Effects of ADMA upon gene expression: an insight into the pathophysiological significance of raised plasma ADMA.
PLoS Medicine
, 2
(10)
, Article e264. 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020264.
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Abstract
Background Currently, poor-rich inequalities in health in developing countries receive a lot of attention from both researchers and policy makers. Since measuring economic status in developing countries is often problematic, different indicators of wealth are used in different studies. Until now, there is a lack of evidence on the extent to which the use of different measures of economic status affects the observed magnitude of health inequalities. Methods This paper provides this empirical evidence for 10 developing countries, using the Demographic and Health Surveys data-set. We compared the World Bank asset index to three alternative wealth indices, all based on household assets. Under-5 mortality and measles immunisation coverage were the health outcomes studied. Poor-rich inequalities in under-5 mortality and measles immunisation coverage were measured using the Relative Index of Inequality. Results Comparing the World Bank index to the alternative indices, we found that (1) the relative position of households in the national wealth hierarchy varied to an important extent with the asset index used, (2) observed poor-rich inequalities in under-5 mortality and immunisation coverage often changed, in some cases to an important extent, and that (3) the size and direction of this change varied per country, index, and health indicator. Conclusion Researchers and policy makers should be aware that the choice of the measure of economic status influences the observed magnitude of health inequalities, and that differences in health inequalities between countries or time periods, may be an artefact of different wealth measures used.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Effects of ADMA upon gene expression: an insight into the pathophysiological significance of raised plasma ADMA |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020264 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020264 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2005 Smith et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/38019 |
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