ArticleInternational journal for equity in health2007
Using relative and absolute measures for monitoring health inequalities: experiences from cross-national analyses on maternal and child health.
Article in International journal for equity in health, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis.Lancet (London, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Black-white disparity in disability among U.S. older adults: age, period, and cohort trends.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2014Trial
- Impact of selective evidence presentation on judgments of health inequality trends: an experimental study.PloS one · 2013Trial
- Has the COVID-19 pandemic altered social inequalities in child development? A time trend analysis of developmental delays in preschool children by parental education.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Socio-Economic Inequalities and Child Mortality in Pakistan: Evidence From the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Family planning exemplar country selection methodology: time lag and trends analysis.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- A registry-based approach for estimating county-level race disparities in breast cancer mortality: an analysis in Georgia.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases in Germany and Europe - results of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS 3, 2018 - 2020).Journal of health monitoring · 2024Article
- Inequality in Childhood Immunization Coverage: A Scoping Review of Data Sources, Analyses, and Reporting Methods.Vaccines · 2024Article
- Effect of social and behavioral change interventions on minimum dietary diversity among pregnant women and associated socio-economic inequality in Rajasthan, India.BMC nutrition · 2024Article
- Antenatal care services in Benin and Tanzania 2021/2022: an equity analysis study.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- Going deeper with health equity measurement: how much more can surveys reveal about inequalities in health intervention coverage and mortality in Zambia?International journal for equity in health · 2023Article
- A Novel Methodological Approach to Measure Linear Trends in Health Inequalities: Proof of Concept With Adolescent Smoking in Europe.American journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Determinants of neonatal deaths in Indonesia: A national survey data analysis of 10,838 newborns.Heliyon · 2023Article
- Socioeconomic Status, Overweight, and Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence—Secular Trends From the Nationwide German Kiggs StudyDeutsches Arzteblatt international · 2022Article
- Household income and maternal education in early childhood and risk of overweight and obesity in late childhood: Findings from seven birth cohort studies in six high-income countries.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2022Article
- Comparison of mortality hazard ratios associated with health behaviours in Canada and the United States: a population-based linked health survey study.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Changes in cause-specific mortality trends across occupations in working-age Japanese women from 1980 to 2015: a cross-sectional analysis.BMC women's health · 2022Article
- Article
- Education and income-related inequalities in multimorbidity among older Brazilian adults.PloS one · 2022Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAs reducing socio-economic inequalities in health is an important public health objective, monitoring of these inequalities is an important public health task. The specific inequality measure used can influence the conclusions drawn, and there is no consensus on which measure is most meaningful. The key issue raising most debate is whether to use relative or absolute inequality measures. Our paper aims to inform this debate and develop recommendations for monitoring health inequalities on the basis of empirical analyses for a broad range of developing countries.
methodsWealth-group specific data on under-5 mortality, immunisation coverage, antenatal and delivery care for 43 countries were obtained from the Demographic and Health Surveys. These data were used to describe the association between the overall level of these outcomes on the one hand, and relative and absolute poor-rich inequalities in these outcomes on the other.
resultsWe demonstrate that the values that the absolute and relative inequality measures can take are bound by mathematical ceilings. Yet, even where these ceilings do not play a role, the magnitude of inequality is correlated with the overall level of the outcome. The observed tendencies are, however, not necessities. There are countries with low mortality levels and low relative inequalities. Also absolute inequalities showed variation at most overall levels.
conclusionOur study shows that both absolute and relative inequality measures can be meaningful for monitoring inequalities, provided that the overall level of the outcome is taken into account. Suggestions are given on how to do this. In addition, our paper presents data that can be used for benchmarking of inequalities in the field of maternal and child health in low and middle-income countries.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.