Cargando…
Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries
BACKGROUND: It is widely recognised that the pursuit of sustainable development cannot be accomplished without addressing inequality, or observed differences between subgroups of a population. Monitoring health inequalities allows for the identification of health topics where major group differences...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2016
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5069829/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27760520 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-016-0229-9 |
_version_ | 1782461013041348608 |
---|---|
author | Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza Nambiar, Devaki Schlotheuber, Anne Reidpath, Daniel Ross, Zev |
author_facet | Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza Nambiar, Devaki Schlotheuber, Anne Reidpath, Daniel Ross, Zev |
author_sort | Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: It is widely recognised that the pursuit of sustainable development cannot be accomplished without addressing inequality, or observed differences between subgroups of a population. Monitoring health inequalities allows for the identification of health topics where major group differences exist, dimensions of inequality that must be prioritised to effect improvements in multiple health domains, and also population subgroups that are multiply disadvantaged. While availability of data to monitor health inequalities is gradually improving, there is a commensurate need to increase, within countries, the technical capacity for analysis of these data and interpretation of results for decision-making. Prior efforts to build capacity have yielded demand for a toolkit with the computational ability to display disaggregated data and summary measures of inequality in an interactive and customisable fashion that would facilitate interpretation and reporting of health inequality in a given country. METHODS: To answer this demand, the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT), was developed between 2014 and 2016. The software, which contains the World Health Organization’s Health Equity Monitor database, allows the assessment of inequalities within a country using over 30 reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health indicators and five dimensions of inequality (economic status, education, place of residence, subnational region and child’s sex, where applicable). RESULTS/CONCLUSION: HEAT was beta-tested in 2015 as part of ongoing capacity building workshops on health inequality monitoring. This is the first and only application of its kind; further developments are proposed to introduce an upload data feature, translate it into different languages and increase interactivity of the software. This article will present the main features and functionalities of HEAT and discuss its relevance and use for health inequality monitoring. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5069829 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50698292016-10-24 Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza Nambiar, Devaki Schlotheuber, Anne Reidpath, Daniel Ross, Zev BMC Med Res Methodol Software BACKGROUND: It is widely recognised that the pursuit of sustainable development cannot be accomplished without addressing inequality, or observed differences between subgroups of a population. Monitoring health inequalities allows for the identification of health topics where major group differences exist, dimensions of inequality that must be prioritised to effect improvements in multiple health domains, and also population subgroups that are multiply disadvantaged. While availability of data to monitor health inequalities is gradually improving, there is a commensurate need to increase, within countries, the technical capacity for analysis of these data and interpretation of results for decision-making. Prior efforts to build capacity have yielded demand for a toolkit with the computational ability to display disaggregated data and summary measures of inequality in an interactive and customisable fashion that would facilitate interpretation and reporting of health inequality in a given country. METHODS: To answer this demand, the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT), was developed between 2014 and 2016. The software, which contains the World Health Organization’s Health Equity Monitor database, allows the assessment of inequalities within a country using over 30 reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health indicators and five dimensions of inequality (economic status, education, place of residence, subnational region and child’s sex, where applicable). RESULTS/CONCLUSION: HEAT was beta-tested in 2015 as part of ongoing capacity building workshops on health inequality monitoring. This is the first and only application of its kind; further developments are proposed to introduce an upload data feature, translate it into different languages and increase interactivity of the software. This article will present the main features and functionalities of HEAT and discuss its relevance and use for health inequality monitoring. BioMed Central 2016-10-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5069829/ /pubmed/27760520 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-016-0229-9 Text en © World Health Organization; 2016 licensee BioMed Central. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL. |
spellingShingle | Software Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza Nambiar, Devaki Schlotheuber, Anne Reidpath, Daniel Ross, Zev Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title | Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title_full | Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title_fullStr | Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title_full_unstemmed | Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title_short | Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
title_sort | health equity assessment toolkit (heat): software for exploring and comparing health inequalities in countries |
topic | Software |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5069829/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27760520 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-016-0229-9 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT hosseinpoorahmadreza healthequityassessmenttoolkitheatsoftwareforexploringandcomparinghealthinequalitiesincountries AT nambiardevaki healthequityassessmenttoolkitheatsoftwareforexploringandcomparinghealthinequalitiesincountries AT schlotheuberanne healthequityassessmenttoolkitheatsoftwareforexploringandcomparinghealthinequalitiesincountries AT reidpathdaniel healthequityassessmenttoolkitheatsoftwareforexploringandcomparinghealthinequalitiesincountries AT rosszev healthequityassessmenttoolkitheatsoftwareforexploringandcomparinghealthinequalitiesincountries |