The Inequity of Expenditure Ratios on Health and Food among Different Deciles of Iranian Households

Background and purpose: Utilization of health care services and food influence the health status. The food and health care expenditure ratios determine the importance level of them in householdʹs consumption expenditures. We aimed to investigate the Iranian rural and urban food and health expenditure ratios inequality during 1998 to 2012. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive longitudinal study, which was conducted based on Iranian Statistics Centre and Central Bank annual surveys. Firstly we calculated the households food and health expenditure ratios. Then we calculated the Gini coefficients and Atkinson index by using STATA version 12. Results: The mean of rural households food and health expenditure ratios were 0.53 and 0.37 respectively. Also these were 0.53 and 0.22 for urban households. All above inequality levels are based on Gini coefficients. Conclusion: There is a high level of inequality between Iranian rural and urban income deciles for health expenditure ratio, but the food expenditure ratio inequality were less and lower.