Do educational reforms increase or decrease health inequalities
A matter of methods
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4736635 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joost Oude Groeniger (0000-0002-0691-1679, Erasmus University Rotterdam, corresponding author), Márta K Radó (0000-0002-1676-5951, Erasmus MC - Sophia Children’s Hospital), Frank J Van Lenthe (0000-0001-6402-7075) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 279 |
| Pages | 114003 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science & Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114003 |
| PMID | 33990073 |
| OpenAlex | W3163501001 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
Evaluating whether social policies reduce health inequalities is complicated by the fact that these upstream determinants may also change the socioeconomic distribution. Failure to account for these compositional changes may severely bias the effect estimation procedure. In this article, we illustrate how a health inequality impact assessment of a policy that (also) changes the socioeconomic distribution may produce biased results. First, we show why analyses that do not account for compositional changes fail to estimate the correct counterfactual outcome. This problem most notably occurs when using repeated cross-sectional data, often the only available option to evaluate the health effect of large-scale policies. Second, we conducted a microsimulation study to estimate the magnitude of the bias under various conditions. The results showed that the actual impact of the policy on health inequalities is often underestimated and may even produce results that are in the opposite direction of the actual causal effect of the policy. Future studies should explore new strategies, such as simulation methods, to assess the impact of policies that (also) cause changes in the socioeconomic composition of the population, to enable researchers to accurately estimate their effect on health inequalities
Counterfactual thinking · Demographic economics · Distribution (mathematics · Econometrics · Economics · Environmental health · Estimation · Geography · Inequality · Population · Public economics · Scale (ratio · Socioeconomic status · demographic modeling and climate adaptation · Global Health Care Issues · Health disparities and outcomes · Mathematics · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology
Using propensity scores in difference-in-differences models to estimate the effects of a policy change
Designing Difference in Difference Studies
A Structural Approach to Selection Bias
Illustrating bias due to conditioning on a collider
Natural Experiments
The Social Determinants of Health
Monitoring health inequalities when the socio-economic composition changes
Measuring the magnitude of socio-economic inequalities in health
What types of interventions generate inequalities? Evidence from systematic reviews
Evidence for public health policy on inequalities
A definition of causal effect for epidemiological research
Education
Endogenous Selection Bias
Educational Attainment in the Context of Social Inequality
Do comprehensive school reforms impact the health of early school leavers? Results of a comparative difference-in-difference design
Achievement Inequality and the Institutional Structure of Educational Systems
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |