Thesis (M.Sc.)--Chulalongkorn University, 2011

This is a cross sectional descriptive study conducted in Liangcheng County, China. This study aims to assess rural residents’ health-related quality of life and health inequality. It is a face-to-face interview, and altogether 948 households were collected. The main findings of this study are that female group, elderly group, low educational level group and low income level group have the higher proportion of problems on each EQ-5D dimension. Educational level, annual household income, housing space, employment status, chronic disease, two-week disease, age, alcoholconsumption and accessibility of health service have significant relationship with health-related quality of life. According to the results of study, health-related quality of life has a positive relationship with educational level, annual household income, housing space, employment status and alcoholconsumption at 5% significant level, while health-related quality of life has a negative relationship with chronic disease, two-week disease, age and accessibility of health service at 5% significant level. This study also finds that annual household income has a positive relationship with health-related quality of life. In addition, the concentration index is -0.1250 when health variable is prevalence rate of chronic disease. This result indicates that prevalence rate of chronic disease takes higher rates among poorer people and Liangcheng County has a certain degree inequality.