Age
How can a health indicator differ across different stages of life?
A global average can hide important differences between people, places and circumstances.
Who experiences what, where, when — and what might help us understand the pattern?
The WHO Health Inequality Data Repository brings together disaggregated health data that allow us to investigate measurable differences across population groups and settings.
How can a health indicator differ across different stages of life?
What patterns appear between urban and rural populations or across geographic areas?
What differences appear across educational groups?
How do health indicators vary across economic groups?
Where do indicators differ by sex, and how should those differences be explored?
What disappears when an entire country is represented by one average?
What does the data show?
How large is the difference?
Where, among whom and when does it occur?
What factors might be associated with the pattern?
What do we know — and what do we not know?
Could it be unfair, avoidable or remediable? What additional evidence would help us understand it?
Before deciding what this means, investigate the statement.
Incidence, prevalence, mortality, coverage — or something else?
Are both values from the same period?
Same age range, sex, population definition and geographic level?
What population is the rate calculated from?
National authority, WHO, IHME or another source?
What method produced the value? Is uncertainty reported?
Check definitions, methods, populations, time and context.
Once a difference is identified, learners can explore possible determinants and contexts. Association is not automatically explanation.
Learning opportunities, literacy, knowledge and access to information.
Income, employment, poverty and material conditions.
Housing, water, sanitation, air quality, climate and physical surroundings.
Availability, accessibility, quality and use of health services.
Community, relationships, social structures and broader circumstances.
Exposures and environmental changes that may influence health and wellbeing.
WHO provides disaggregated health inequality data and tools for exploring differences between population groups and settings.
HEAT can support the creation and exploration of graphs, maps and tables.
Visit WHO Health Inequality Monitor ↗IHME's GBD framework provides modelled estimates of health outcomes, causes and risks across locations, populations and time.
It offers a valuable gateway for learning about evidence synthesis, estimates and uncertainty.
Visit IHME GBD ↗