Vital and Health Statistics, Series 2, Number 141. Methodological Issues in Measuring Health Disparities

摘要

This report discusses six issues that affect the measurement of disparities in health between groups in a population: Selecting a reference point from which to measure disparity; Measuring disparity in absolute or in relative terms; Measuring in terms of favorable or adverse events; Measuring in pair-wise or in summary fashion; Choosing whether to weight groups according to group size; Deciding whether to consider any inherent ordering of the groups. These issues represent choices that are made when disparities are measured. Examples are used to highlight how these choices affect specific measures of disparity.