The combined demographic and epidemiologic transition has become a public policy concern, especially in developing countries. This combined demographic and epidemiologic transition will increase the healthcare needs and, therefore, more challenges for health policy. Working towards a healthy ageing society is considered as one of the main policy measures to address these concerns. The present study primarily examines the role of access to healthcare as a key determinant of inequality in healthy ageing using one of the world’s largest ageing datasets, the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI)- wave 1. A nationally representative sample of 13225 older adults aged 60 years and above, who utilised Out Patient (OP) care in the last 12 months constituted the study sample. The study considered two dimensions of inequity in healthcare access; i) financial access and ii) geographic access. The study applied the quantile decomposition technique to estimate the inequality in healthy ageing. The findings revealed that inequity in access to healthcare is a key driver of inequality in healthy ageing, and older adults with easiness to healthcare access (short distance) were more likely to be healthier. Therefore, to improve the health status of older adults, public health intervention should focus on minimizing geographic barriers to accessing primary health care, as a key policy aspect to strengthening Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Keywords: Inequity in healthcare access, Healthy ageing, Inequality, Decomposition analysis, Quantile regression