Income-related unmet needs in the European countries

This paper proposes an assessment of the association between income and unmet health needs in 29 European countries included in the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) in 2015. Income-related inequalities for four categories of unmet needs are estimated by the Erreygers Index (EI). Unmet needs are organised into two categories: on the one side, unmet needs directly associated with households’ budget constraints; on the other side, unmet needs not directly associated with budget constraints, as waiting lists and transportation problems. Results show that all categories of unmet needs fall on lower-income people for most European systems. Furthermore, when analysing the determinants of unmet needs, those directly associated with budget constraints are led by the economic drivers, while income-related unmet needs due to long waiting lists and distance or transportation problems are more related to institutional factors such as the low quality of government.