This volume presents the results of research which represent a significant contribution to the knowledge of equity in the finance and delivery of health care in ten countries. It compares the experience of nine European countries and the US using a consistent methodology to draw out comparable results from ten very different health care systems. Such an approach facilitates not only a greater understanding of the performance of the health care systems of other countries but also the identification of the lessons that can be learnt from international comparisons. In recent years it has been recognized that many health and health care problems are similar across many countries and their solution can be usefuly informed by the abandonment both of isolation and the belief that an individual country's problems are unique. The contents of this book demonstrate that given efficient research teams, research funding can produce both significant new knowledge of direct relevance to the reform of health care systems world-wide, and also collaborative, mutually informative work between Europeans and others living outside the EEC.

Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on. This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.