Advances and Applications in Statistics
Volume 2, Issue 2, Pages 149 - 176
(August 2002)
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THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INCOME AND MORTALITY IN TEXAS AND TAIWAN - A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SPATIAL STATISTICS
Chiehwen Ed Hsu (USA), Dejian Lai (USA), Charles Begley (USA) and Luisa Franzini (USA)
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Abstract: Income effect on health has been
established in the literature for decades. Research
suggested that both income level and income
inequality affect health, in opposite directions.
This study examined income and spatial effect on
mortality for both Texas and Taiwan. Measures of
income inequality were computed for 1997, and
all-cause mortality and cancer mortality for
1995-1998. In our study, ordinary least squares
regression was first used to examine income effect
on health, the D, I, C statistics were employed to
detect spatial autocorrelation, and then linear
spatial regression was used to adjust for the
spatial effect. The results suggest that for Texas,
income inequality positively affected all-cause
mortality; while for Taiwan, income level was
inversely associated with both all-cause mortality
and cancer mortality, and income inequality was
positively associated with cancer mortality. Income
level and inequality, and all-cause mortality
exhibited spatial autocorrelation in both Texas and
Taiwan. The results support that in Texas, as a
fully industrialized state, income inequality had an
adverse effect on health; while in Taiwan, as a
newly developed economy, both income level and
inequality affected health, in opposite directions.
The association of income on health persisted after
adjusting for spatial autocorrelation. |
Keywords and phrases: linear regression, spatial autocorrelation, income inequality. |
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