Statistical Analysis of Health Inequalities in European Countries

Abstract

Efficiently functioning health systems are a prerequisite for high-quality health care and healthy life expectancy. Health care management at all levels requires a lot of information that can be obtained only by relevant analyses of health data. There are collected and regularly updated on-line published a large number of databases and enormous number of indicators about health status, health expenditures and health systems functioning at regional, national, EU member countries, OECD countries and on the world level. Paradoxically, the extent of these data sets is the reason why without at least basic statistical analysis the level of provided information is minimal. Advanced statistical methods aimed at reducing the dimension and quantification of causal relationships can provide significant information added value. The objective of this article is to analyse causal relationships between health status, health expenditures and sources of health care in selected European countries and to identify determinants of health inequalities in European countries by applying multidimensional statistical methods.