Exploring Economic Profiles of Morbidity: Measures and Illustrations with Indian Data

This paper proposes measures to identify how prevalence of various diseases and disease groups vary by economic status of the household so as to permit categorization of diseases into those associated with deprivation and affluence respectively. For this purpose, the study estimates (i) pseudo-Lorenz ratio for distribution of morbidity (as measured by the number of household members reporting an ailment) with respect to the household's economic status (as measured by the household per capita consumption expenditure); and (ii) Engel elasticity of morbidity with respect to the household's economic status by disease. The paper illustrates with economic gradients in morbidity disaggregated by disease using household level micro data from the 60^th round of the National Sample Survey for the state of Kerala in India and for India as a whole. Among the results, one particularly noteworthy is that the rich have higher morbidity rates than the poor, although this varies by disease.