文章基本信息

标题：Health Disparities Calculator: A Methodologically Rigorous Tool for Analyzing Inequalities in Population Health
本地全文：下载
作者：Nancy Breen ; Susan Scott ; Antoinette Percy-Laurry 等
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2014
卷号：104
期号：9
页码：1589-1591
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2014.301982
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Historically, researchers and policy planners have selected a single indicator to measure trends in social inequalities. A more rigorous approach is to review the literature and data, select appropriate inequality measures to address the research question, compute results from various indices, and graphically compare resulting trends. The Health Disparities Calculator (HD*Calc, version 1.2.4; National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD) computes results from different indices and graphically displays them, making an arduous task easier, more transparent, and more accessible. Health disparities are complex social phenomena. Economists and other social scientists have developed many indices to measure trends in inequality. As noted by Sen and Foster, “If a concept has some basic ambiguity, then a precise representation of that ambiguous concept must preserve that ambiguity . . . for descriptive accuracy in inequality measurement. . . .” 1 ^(p121) No single measure exists that reflects the complexities of inequality. Instead, there is a range of measures for different aspects of the concept. World Bank Chief Economist Martin Ravaillion noted, “There is no economic theory that tells us that inequality is relative, not absolute. Rather, they are two different concepts.” 2 ^(p27) HD*Calc facilitates the exploration of a variety of disparity indices.