On examining health inequities in Arab countries: some policy considerations

William Joe, Centre for Development Studies
Udaya S Mishra, Centre for Development Studies

This paper undertakes a comparison of the magnitude of health inequity across the seven Arabic countries. Here the concern has been on assessment of group inequities. We propose here three distinct approach of measuring group inequities manifested across a set of health outcomes. Maternal education and physical accessibility are the major criterion along which health disparities get manifested. Egypt and Jordan were observably the countries with better health and health equity profiles whereas Sudan and Yemen were performing poorly. However, it was also observed that not all among the urban mothers believe that health facilities are better than their home for child birth and ANC care, which is essentially a matter of choice or more to do with the quality of the facility itself. The paper also provides a theoretical reasoning for the observed disparities by corroborating some basic evidence. The identified attributes are of immense help to direct interventions.