Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington, DC, USA.
Health Econ. 2011 Oct;20(10):1155-60. doi: 10.1002/hec.1752. Epub 2011 Jun 15.
The binary variable is one of the most common types of variables in the analysis of income-related health inequalities. I argue that while the binary variable has some unusual properties, it shares many of the properties of the ratio-scale variable and hence lends itself to both relative and absolute inequality analyses, albeit with some qualifications. I argue that criticisms of the normalization I proposed in an earlier paper, and of the use of the binary variable for inequality analysis, stem from a misrepresentation of the properties of the binary variable, as well as a switch of focus away from relative inequality to absolute inequality. I concede that my normalization is not uncontentious, but, in a way, that has not previously been noted.
二进制变量是收入相关健康不平等分析中最常见的变量类型之一。我认为，虽然二进制变量具有一些特殊性质，但它与比率量表变量具有许多相同的性质，因此既适用于相对不平等分析，也适用于绝对不平等分析，但需要一些限定条件。我认为，对我在之前一篇论文中提出的标准化方法以及对二进制变量用于不平等分析的批评，源于对二进制变量性质的错误表述，以及将关注焦点从相对不平等转向绝对不平等。我承认我的标准化方法并非没有争议，但在某种程度上，这一点以前没有被注意到。
