Abstract
This study investigates inequality in the supply of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) treatment for Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) in Norway during the years 1999 to 2007. The study aims to assess whether consumption of PCI varies with need, or whether the consumption varies with other factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), distance to treatment centre and geographical location. The analysis is performed as a multiple linear regression analysis with dummy variables for Hospital Trusts and years. The results show an increase in the probability of PCI from 1999 – 2007 for the whole of Norway. The main result of this study is that there are significant differences in the probability of PCI during the period of analysis. The differences are relatively large in the beginning of the period. Due to decreasing differences with time, the differences are relatively small in the end of the period of analysis. Independent variables with significant results from the analysis are age, gender, mortality from ischemic heart diseases, population share above 80 years, distance to PCI-treatment centre, eighteen dummies for Hospital Trusts and seven year dummies.