Health services: gap between rich and poor halved in developing countries

2023-04-20 15:27:08

The World Health Organization (WHO) paper also finds that, in these countries, eliminating wealth-related inequalities in under-five mortality might save 1,000 lives. 8 million children.

“The ability to direct services to those who need them most is essential to advancing health equity and improving lives. This Framework will help us go beyond just counting births and deaths and disaggregate health data by gender, age, education, region and more,” said said in a statement, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO.

Hypertension is more common in men in wealthy countries

Although limited, the available data also show important patterns of inequality. In high-income countries, hypertension is more common in men than in women, and obesity rates are similar in men and women.

In contrast, in low-income countries, rates of hypertension are similar in women and men, but obesity rates are higher in women than in men.

“If we are really determined to leave no one behind, we have to determine who is left behind,” added Dr Tedros.

The benchmark also reveals inequalities in national responses to Covid-19. In 2021, in more than a third of 90 countries with data, Covid-19 vaccine coverage among the most educated people was at least 15% higher than among the least educated.

By releasing the Health Inequalities Report, WHO is calling on countries to adopt systematic monitoring of health inequalities, expand data collection and build analytical capacity. Monitoring of health inequalities should be integrated into global and national goals, indicators and targets, as well as health performance assessments.

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Nurses work at a mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Rofunta, Sierra Leone, in December 2022.

Data ranging from level of education to ethnicity

This Health Inequalities Data Repository (HIDR) tracks health inequalities across population groups and over time, disaggregating data by group characteristics, ranging from level of education to affiliation. ethnic. The directory includes nearly 11 million data points and consists of 59 datasets from more than 15 sources.

The data includes measures of over 2,000 indicators broken down across 22 dimensions of inequality, including demographic, socio-economic and geographic factors. The topics covered are: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); COVID-19; reproductive, maternal and child health; the vaccination ; HIV; tuberculosis ; malaria; nutrition ; Healthcare ; non-communicable diseases and environmental health.

However, disaggregated data is still not available for many health indicators and, when it is, it is most often disaggregated only by sex and, to a lesser extent, by age and place of residence. For example, only 170 of the 320 indicators in WHO’s health statistics portal, the Global Health Observatory, are disaggregated, of which 116, or two-thirds, are disaggregated only by sex.

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