Estimating Income-Related Health Inequalities Associated with Tobacco and Alcohol Consumption in Namibia

Disparities in resources and access to material opportunities are important determinants of income-related health inequality. This paper hypothesises that the gradient of the inequality in health between the poor and the rich is likely to depend on differences in lifestyle practices including tobacco use and alcohol abuse. Using the 2015/16 Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey and the Erreygers corrected concentration index, we estimate the effect of tobacco and alcohol use on income-related health inequalities. A decomposition technique was used to estimate the separate and joint contribution of tobacco and alcohol use to income-related health inequalities. The results indicate that tobacco use widens the income-related health inequality gap while alcohol consumption reduces health disparities. The simultaneous consumption of these goods has a stronger multiplicative effect on income-related health inequality. For instance, the simultaneous consumption of both goods contribute up to 1.03% of the inequality in health while tobacco use alone contributed only 0.6%. While policy options for each of these goods could be essential in reducing inequalities in health, there is a need to advocate additional measures that could simultaneously control the consumption of both goods.