Measuring Progress in Health through Deprivation Indexes

Progress in health is usually measured by means of indicators of health status such as premature mortality ratio or life expectancy. There is evidence that in more developed countries, despite general health improvement, inequalities in health among individuals are worsening. Most of these inequalities, however, could be avoided because they are due to socioeconomic conditions, depending on the relation between socioeconomic conditions and health largely proved in literature. The main conclusion is that measuring progress in health should not be limited to health status, but should also consider health inequalities. The suggested method to quantify them is to follow the deprivation index approach. The analysis is applied to a case study where the comparison between health statuses of two Census periods is completed by estimating also the variability in health inequalities, proxied by the gradients in Standard Mortality Ratios [SMRs] among small areas with different socioeconomic conditions. The latter are quantified by an index of material deprivation previously developed based on 1991 and 2001 Census data.