Socioeconomic determinants of the health status of people in Peru, 2016

Abstract

This research analyzes the factors that influence the state of health of Peruvians through Logit and Probit dichotomous models, based on information from the National Household Survey of 2016 referring to a group of private homes and their residents living in the urban and rural area of ​​Peru. The information used corresponds to the health, education, employment and income modules and characteristics of the household members, and only households with complete information for the indicated variables have been considered. Being health a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, it is considered an essential good for the general well-being and satisfaction of the people, it is also related to the improvement of human capital, which can translate into increases in productivity and decrease of health expenditures due to illness and a decrease in national income due to the reduction of productivity and labor force, in this way is related to economic growth. The results indicate that the best econometric estimation corresponds to the Logit model in which the variables income, employment and education show a positive relationship with the health status of the people, while the variables age and sex show a negative relationship, while the marginal effects with the greatest impact are employment (20.9%), education (8.3%) and sex (-13.6%), these results are consistent with previous research. It is concluded that the state of health increases with income, employment and education, decreases with age and is different according to sex.