M1s3 Health Ineqities Flashcards
Health status indicators
Specific ways to measure health status
-important to understand in order to address key global health issues
What are the three reasons that the use of health status indicators are critical
- To determine the causes of illness, disability and death
- To carry out disease surveillance
- To make comparisons about health within and across countries
List 5 most commonly used health status indicators to measure the health of a given population
Life expectancy at birth
-the average number of years a newborn baby would be expected to live if the current mortality trends remained for the rest of the newborns life
Neonatal Mortality Rate
-the number of deaths of infants under 28 days of age in a given year per 1000 live births in that same year
Infant mortality rate
-the number of deaths of infants under the age of 1 per 1000 live births in a given year
Under-5 mortality rate
-the probability that a newborn infant will die before reaching the age of 5, expressed as a number per 1000 live births
Maternal Mortality ratio
-the number of women who die as a result of complications due to pregnancy and childbirth per 100,000 live births in a given year
How do we measure population health?
-vital statistics (accumulated records of the births and deaths within a population) are oftentimes the only data that are collected within a population
-Mortality (death) can also be used to determine health in a population
-can be used across geographic areas to determine and compare the health of different populations
Under-5 mortality
-common population health indicator with high mortality rates indicative of child health concerns such has high rates of diarrheal disease or malnutrition
-on graph for mortality by cause between 2000-2015, nearly half child mortality (45.1%) is neonatal- that is within the first five months of life and rates even higher for equity-deserving groups
What is an issue with blunt measures of health like life or death
It does not recognize other factors such as suffering, disease burden, disability or morbidity (prevalence of a disease or illness)
Health disparities/inequalities
-a type of difference in health that is closely linked with social or economic disadvantages
-some con on patterns of health disparities typically emerge within and across populations like examples below
Income:
-less well-off people, with less social and political power will generally have worse health, poorer services and less fairness and protection for financing health
Variations in Health Indicators:
-some countries have substantial variation in health indicators across sub-population groups, by other factors like level of family income
Impact of socioeconomic status on health between and within countries contributing to health disparities
-health disparities by wealth occur worldwide
-under 5 child mortality is highest among families with low, socioeconomic status, relative to the families with high social economic status
-although these aren’t equal for each country
-people with lowest socioeconomic status in Morocco have lower mortality rates than people with the highest socioeconomic status in Uganda
Geographical location effecting health disparities
-geographical location like if one lives in rural and urban areas associated with disparities of healthcare access and healthcare outcomes
Ex. Growth stunting rural vs urban children
Graph comparing sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America and Caribbean shows that rural children across the globe are at higher risk for adverse health outcomes of early childhood
Ex. Contraceptive (birth control) use rural vs urban couples
-in east Asia and pacific regions, rates of contraceptive use are similar for rural and urban dwellers, while other parts of the world there are substantial gaps in use between rural and urban (more used in urban)
Health inequaity/equity definition
Inequalities involve how resources are shared equally amongst individuals
Inequities are a form of inequality
True definitions of inequality:
WHO - “health inequities are differences in health status or in the distribution of health resources between different population groups, arising from the social conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age”
Margaret Whitehead - “differences in health that are not only unnecessary and avoidable but also unfair and unjust”
Health Inequalities in Canada
-Canadian children living in communities with lower levels of education and employment and income have lower chances of reaching full developed adulthood
-Canadians with lower education, employment or income are more likely to have diabetes and poor mental health
-certain Canadians like First Nations on reserves and other indigenous people Experince higher food insecurity in addition to black and Latin Americans and bisexual people
-recent immigrants less likely to get proper house
-indigenous inequalities come from roots of forced off land, banning of language and culture and residential schools
Address by ensuring conditions support health available to all people
Health inequities within Canada 3 big examples
- Time-inappropriate mammographies
In Canada, rural women aged 50-69 are 1.32 times more likely than urban women to have time-inappropriate mammography or no mammography at all - Rate of tuberculosis
The rate of tuberculosis in indigenous communities is 25 times higher than the rate in non-indigenous communities - Rate of diabetes
-although greater variation in diabetes prevalence rates across communities, overall the rate of Type 2 diabetes, among adults living on reserve or in northern community 3 times higher than adults living in other parts of Canada
Health inequality verses health inequity
-addressing differences in health required decisions to be made about what approach to take for intervention
Health inequality- equal shares if people are given equal shares it may be some help but might not address health differences because people do not all have the same starting point
Health inequity- fair shares if people given fair shares, some people will get more and others will get less depending on their underlying needs in other to be healthy
Health inequalities
Differences in health that are unavoidable such as differences in some health outcomes by age or gender
Health inequities
Differences in health that are avoidable or unnecessary and are unfair
