economic inequality in outpatient healthcare utilization: the case of iran

Background:one of importantgoals of any health system is to reduce healthcare inequalities in its jurisdiction. we aimed to track economic inequality in outpatient health careutilization after the healthcare transformation plan in iran.study design:a cross-sectional study.methods:thedata obtained from the iranian healthcare utilization household survey conducted in2015. the inequality in health careutilization was assessed through concentratingindex, concentration curve, and odds ratio. gis analysis also was used to show provincial concentration index in the map of iran. the analysis was performed on more than 14000 subjects aged 15 yr or higher reported outpatient health careservice’s needs.results: the richest to poorest odds ratio of outpatient health care utilization was 1.14 (95%ci: 1.11, 1.17). the concentration index of outpatient healthcare utilization was obtained 0.094 (95%ci: 0.77, 0.11). although the concentration indices of rural and urban residents were significantly different, there was no significant difference between male and female subject. provincial and gis analysis showed that inequality in outpatient healthcare utilization was spatially distributed in iran.conclusions:findings of current study indicate that after the healthcare transformation plan, economic inequality in outpatient healthcare utilization still were pro-rich in iran as a whole and in some of its provinces