The Health Utility Index: measuring health differences in Ontario by socioeconomic status

The positive relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and longevity has long been established. Comparable evidence exists for SES and morbidity, but observations of this relationship tend to be limited to specific health indicators. In this article, a comprehensive quantitative measure of health status, the Health Utility Index (HUI), is applied to an analysis of the relationship between SES and the health status of people aged 25 and over in Ontario. The HUI, based on a set of questions included in the 1990 Ontario Health Survey (OHS), provides a summary index of the health of each respondent. The OHS data show that lower levels of education, income, and occupation are associated with lower HUI values. Health status differences across SES groups are greater in late middle-age than at younger or older ages, a pattern consistent with the findings of other studies. The development of summary indicators like the HUI is part of a larger effort to construct measures for monitoring the health of Canadians.