The European Deprivation Index: A Tool to Help Build an Evidence-Based Cancer Policy for Europe

The purpose of the European Deprivation Index (EDI) is to build a national index in all European countries designed with the same basic concepts, method of construction and databases so that social inequalities in health could be compared between European countries in spite of social, cultural and economic differences. Similar to other aggregated indexes using census variables, the EDI assesses the social environment area from its sociodemographic composition, accounts for contextual effect and is exposed to ecological bias when used as a proxy for individual assessment. The availability of an aggregated deprivation is precious for implementing interventions based on the principle of proportional universalism. Even if national policies are capable to some extent of curbing the rise in inequality, we think that health inequalities should be analysed and tackled at the European level.