On the measurement of inequalities in health
Open accessAbstract
This paper offers a critical appraisal of the various methods employed to date to measure inequalities in health. It suggests that only two of these--the slope index of inequality and the concentration index--are likely to present an accurate picture of socioeconomic inequalities in health. The paper also presents several empirical examples to illustrate of the dangers of using other measures such as the range, the Lorenz curve and the index of dissimilarity.
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Prior research supports the expectation that COVID-19 cases and deaths would be concentrated in lower income sub-city units.
“there is ample research supporting the expectation that COVID-19 cases and deaths would be concentrated in lower income sub-city units.”
From Social epidemiology of urban COVID-19 inequalities in Latin America and Canada (2024) · cites this paper as [52]
Concentration indices are robust to differences in sub-city unit population size, measure the spectrum of inequality across the entire city's population, and are widely used in health inequality research.
“These bivariate measures of inequality are commonly used in epidemiology because they are robust to differences in sub-city unit population size, measure the spectrum of inequality across the entire city’s population, and are widely used in health inequality research [48, 49].”
From Social epidemiology of urban COVID-19 inequalities in Latin America and Canada (2024) · cites this paper as [49]
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- Authors
- Wagstaff, A., Paci, P., & van Doorslaer, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- City, University of London (GB)
- ORCID
- Wagstaff, Adam
- Venue
- Social Science & Medicine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1991-01
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 545-557
- ISSN
- 0277-9536 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2009288217
- Cited by
- 1,810
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 106 · 2025: 100 · 2024: 87 · 2023: 86 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 100 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 101 · 2018: 77 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 68 · 2015: 73 · 2014: 76 · 2013: 98 · 2012: 69
- FWCI
- 2.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Social Science & Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion)
- RePub (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Health › Public Health and Social Inequalities
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Keywords
- health disparities, socioeconomic inequalities in health, inequality measurement, slope index of inequality, concentration index, Lorenz curve, index of dissimilarity, range
- MeSH terms
- Abstracting and Indexing, Female, United Kingdom, Health Services Research, Health Status Indicators, Humans, Male, Mathematics, Morbidity, Mortality, Scandinavian and Nordic Countries, Social Class, Social Justice, Socioeconomic Factors
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