Measuring social inequalities in health. Report on the Conference of the National Institutes of Health.
Year: 1995
Type: article
Abstract: Although socioeconomic inequalities in health were high on the public health agenda during much of the first half of the 20th century, they faded from view with the assumption that the United States is a classless society. Unlike Great Britain and many European nations where public health data are routinely reported by a socioeconomic measure (most often occupation), the United States generally presents health data by age, sex, and race. Many public health data sets, whether Federal, State, or local, do not contain socioeconomic variables at all, severely limiting our understanding of how and why differentials in health outcomes occur. In an era when cost-effective and targeted health planning is more important than ever, these deficiencies in the availability and reporting of data are no longer acceptable. As a first step, the Public Health Service, under National Institutes of Health leadership, funded a meeting in September 1994 in Annapolis, MD, to address these data gaps and related issues in the measurement of social inequalities in health and to make recommendations for improvements in the collections and reporting of socioeconomic data. I am pleased to share with you the following report of the Annapolis meeting, Measuring Social Inequalities in Health and its recommendations. During the coming months and years, we plan to begin their implementation.
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Institutions: National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1462807008