Assessing Health Inequality Among The Elderly In Ghana

ABSTRACT Background The existence of health inequality across people of all age groups, including the elderly, has been proven to exist by many studies done across the world. However, in Ghana, very little is known about the extent of health inequality among the elderly. Social, economic and demographic factors have been shown to affect the health of the elderly. This study attempts to measure health inequality among the elderly in Ghana and explore factors associated with such inequality. Methodology Data was taken from the World Health Organization (WHO) Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE Wave 1) and data was analyzed using STATA Version 12. Health inequality was measured across the population of the elderly using a concentration curve and calculating the concentration index (CI). Secondly, a binary logistic regression was conducted to assess factors that contribute to health inequality and determine the relationship between these factors and SelfReported Health (SRH) which was used as the outcome measure of morbidity. Findings In total, out of 2845 respondent, 579 (20.4%) rated their health status as poor, 1,211 (42.7%) as moderate and 823 (28.9%) as good. The concentration index (CI) for poor SRH was -0.06 indicating that poor health was concentrated among the poor. The multivariate analysis showed that the odds of reporting poor health were 1.6 times and 2.5 times higher among the middle old and old-old respectively. The elderly with one or more than one chronic condition had increased odds of 1.5 times and 2.5 times respectively, in reporting poor health. In the same way, residents of Western and Volta region were 1.5 times and 1.9 times respectively, more likely to report poor health. On the other hand, the odds of reporting poor health was 75% and 34% less among respondents in the high and highest wealth quintiles respectively, and 20% less among those in the private sector. Conclusion Health inequality exists among the elderly in Ghana and the study found poor health to be concentrated on the poor and rich health concentrated among the rich.