Skip Navigation Links
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
 CDC Home Search Health Topics A-Z

Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice and Policy

View Current Issue
Issue Archive
Archivo de números en español








Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal
MMWR


 Home 

Volume 7: No. 4, July 2010

SPECIAL TOPIC
A Summary Measure of Health Inequalities for a Pay-for-Population Health Performance System

This figure shows groups along the x axis and health along the y axis. The groups are low education, high education, rich, poor, male, and female. They are indicated by circles at various heights indicating that group's level of health. The group with the highest level of health, rich, has a broken horizontal line through the circle. All groups have vertical lines leading to the horizontal line to indicate their distance from the referent group, rich. Numbers are assigned to these distances and calculated as described in the legend.

Figure 3. A simplified example of the Wisconsin health inequality measure. To obtain the overall health inequality, calculate the difference from the reference health level (rich) for each group (poor, low education, high education, male, and female), sum them, and divide by the number of groups minus 1 (6 − 1 = 5).

Return to article

 

This figure shows two bar graphs, for Population A and Population B. Both bar graphs are labeled percent total population along the x axis and health along the y axis. The categories shown on the x axis are rich and poor. For Population A, a large proportion of poor people is represented by a wide bar that is short, indicated a low level of health. A small proportion of rich people is indicated by a narrow bar that is tall, indicating a high level of health. For Population Ba small proportion of poor people is represented by a narrow bar that is short, indicated a low level of health. A large proportion of rich people is indicated by a wide bar that is tall, indicating a high level of health.

Figure 5. Inequality judgment and subgroup population size. The width of the bars suggests the proportion of poor and rich people in the 2 populations. If we consider the degree of income-related health inequality differs in these populations, an inequality measure should be sensitive to this difference.

Return to article

 




 



The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


 Home 

Privacy Policy | Accessibility

CDC Home | Search | Health Topics A-Z

This page last reviewed October 25, 2011

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
 HHS logoUnited States Department of
Health and Human Services