Measuring Geographic and Wealth Inequalities in Health Distribution as Tools for Identifying Priority Health Inequalities and the Underprivileged Populations

BackgroundCurrently, there is no consensus on standard measure that can be routinely part of the health information systems to alert countries to inequalities in health and identify the priority health inequality conditions.ObjectivesTo identify the health inequality measures relevant for assessing geographic and wealth inequalities; use the measures as a demonstration to what can happen in practice to recognize the geographic and wealth-related priority health inequalities within a country; and identify the geographic and wealth underprivileged populations.MethodEgypt data were used as demonstration. Pearson coefficient of correlation was calculated to compare the various geographic and wealth health inequality measures. T test was used to identify significant correlations. The relevant inequality measures were used to rank geographic and wealth health inequalities and identify the underprivileged populations.ResultsThe wealth inequalities in health measured by the concentration index provide a familiar ...