A desigualdade de oportunidade na saúde no Brasil: o estilo de vida e o background familiar são importantes?

Abstract

The understanding of inequality of opportunity in Brazilian health is necessary for the direc- tion of effective public policies, in order to contribute to the formation of human capital and,

consequently, to economic growth. Using the 2013 National Health Survey, the present study aims to measure inequality of opportunity in health for Brazil. For this, the determinants of self-declaration of health status were estimated and, after this, the variance decomposition was used, a measure presented by Shorrocks (1982), to measure health inequality. It was observed that the greater the age, if the individual did not consult the doctor in the last year and, the worse the parents’ health status, the greater the probability of the individual to declare worse health

conditions. In addition, most of the total inequality in Brazilian health is related to circumstan- tial variables, that is, to those factors beyond individual reach. Therefore, public policies that focus on circumstances are recommended in order to mitigate the weight of these factors on individual health.