In 1836 William Barret Travis drew his sword and marked a line in the sand. Those willing to stay and defend the Alamo fort were invited to cross the line; in doing so, like Davy Crockett they became immortal, whereas those remaining on the other side of that line were broadly lost to history. Travis was a “splitter.” Physicians, also, tend to be “splitters,” designating individuals with or wit...

In recent years, it has become clear that the risk of stroke after a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or minor ischemic stroke is higher than was previously supposed, with consistent reports of 7-day stroke risks of up to 10%,1–4 and other evidence of the very short time-window for prevention of stroke after a TIA.5 However, patients with TIA and minor stroke are a highly heterogeneous group in ...

Under what conditions do people act dishonestly to help or hurt others? This paper addresses this question by examining the influence of a previously overlooked factor – the beneficiary or victim of dishonest acts. In two experiments, we randomly pair participants and manipulate their wealth levels through an initial lottery. We then observe how inequity between partners influences the likeliho...

We apply the theory of inequality in opportunity to measure inequity in mortality. Our empirical work is based on a rich dataset for the Netherlands (1998-2007), linking information about mortality, health events and lifestyles. We show that distinguishing between different channels via which mortality is affected is necessary to test the sensitivity of the results with respect to different nor...

International comparisons of horizontal inequity in health has recently become one of the most pertinent issues in health economics. However, no previous studies have been undertaken on Japan. This omission is rectified in this paper. Moreover, we consider the dynamics of horizontal inequity in health over six years from 1992 to 1998. These dynamics have never been considered in this field. In ...

BACKGROUND Notions of equity are fundamental to, and drive much of the current thinking about global health. Health inequity, however, is usually measured using health inequality as a proxy - implicitly conflating equity and equality. Unfortunately measures of global health inequality do not take account of the health inequity associated with the additional, and unfair, encumbrances that poor h...

BACKGROUND To operationalize the post-MDG agenda, there is a need to evaluate the effects of health interventions on equity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect on equity in neonatal survival of the NeoKIP trial (ISRCTN44599712), a population-based, cluster-randomized intervention trial with facilitated local stakeholder groups for improved neonatal survival in Quang Ninh province i...

We study the extent and drivers of income-related inequity in utilization of dental services in Canada using the concentration-index approach that has been widely applied to study inequity in physician and hospital services. Because dental care is almost wholly privately financed in Canada, our estimates provide a benchmark for income-related inequity of utilization in private health systems. A...