Health Inequality - An Overview on the Health Disparities between Romania and European Union State Members

Abstract

Although, currently many people live longer and enjoy the benefit of better health than their previous generations, many countries face an important challenge: large differences among population’s health. Thus, health inequality is met everywhere in the world, but more accentuated in countries with a high level of economic development, or those with strong social protection systems. This is an important reason why social policies should be implemented to reduce disparities between disadvantaged groups and the rest of the population. Therefore, in this paper I analyzed the health inequalities between the populations living in Romania in comparison with European Union State Members, focussing my research on three areas of health matters: health status of population, access to health care services and the resource allocation, which population is spending on health care. The empirical analysis conducted in this study reflects the fact that there are health differences in all three directions. Regarding Romania’s data, not only the health indicators are unfavourable in comparison, but also those relating to access to health services and aggregate affordability for health expenses of the entire population.