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Socioeconomic inequity in the use of primary health care services in Ecuador

Abstract:

In Latin America there are few studies on socioeconomic inequalities in health variables and very few that analyze inequities in the use of health services. We investigate the determinants of the use of public health services regarding preventive and healing visits, as well as the horizontal inequity by calculating the horizontal inequity index of Ecuador's adult population using data from 2012. The results show that there is no evidence of horizontal inequity in the use of preventive and healing health care services. However, we found that groups such as indigenous, individuals with no health insurance, with no education and residents in the urban-coast show a lower probability of using both preventive and healing services.