Search

This article investigates whether equity is achieved in health service utilization by children and adolescents in Great Britain. The British National Health Service aims to provide a comprehensive and universal health care system based on the principle that health care should be equally available to every citizen without exception. Research has concentrated overwhelmingly on equity in relation to socioeconomic status, usually measured by occupational class. It has consistently been shown that health service use in the population as a whole is greater among groups of lower occupational status compared to the professional and managerial classes, leading some to conclude that equity has been successfully achieved by the National Health Service. Most of these studies have used occupational class as the sole indicator of socioeconomic status. However, it may be that other measures capture dimensions of socioeconomic status which are missed in occupational data alone. Research on the use of health services in Great Britain has focused upon ethnicity less commonly than upon socioeconomic status.

A characteristic ethnic patterning to health care utilization has often been noted, with minority ethnic groups generally displaying a high or equivalent use of GP services relative to the white population but a lower use of outpatient services. This paper uses data from the General Household Survey to investigate the nature of the GP consultation as the possible occasion of inequity in health care between ethnic groups and the source of differential ethnic "filtering" into secondary care. The results are equivocal, but suggest that there are systematic ethnic differences in the GP consultation indicated by its location and its outcome in terms of pharmaceutical prescription. These results are related to discussions of equity in health care, and it is suggested that the actual occasion of health care utilization has not been appropriately incorporated into most extant conceptions of equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addresses the equity treatment persons of different ethnic groups in the British National Health Service received, as analysed in surveys conducted between 1984 and 1991. Information on the data used; Methology of data; What were the results of the data.

Suggests that analyzing the processes underlying ethnic residential concentration in Great Britain may help to refine an understanding of ethnic patterns of health. Incorporation of cultural and contextual effects into materialist explanations; Relationship between concentration and health; Implications for research and policy.