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An ordinal measure of population health

Author

Listed:
  • Héctor Pifarré i Arolas

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Christian Dudel

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

Abstract

We propose a population-level health index that addresses two of the main concerns of existing health measures: (1) the biases in self-assessed health measures, and (2) the difficulties associated with making comparisons across populations afflicted by a variety of conditions in a context in which multi-morbidity is high. Starting from a set of general axioms, we derive a partial order index that ranks health across populations based on the relative prevalence of various conditions within these populations, and that can be readily applied to many existing health surveys. We illustrate the use of our health measure by applying it to data from the National Health Interview Survey in order to examine health differences across racial groups in the U.S.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Héctor Pifarré i Arolas & Christian Dudel, 2017. "An ordinal measure of population health," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2017-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2017-010
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2017-010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Herrero, Carmen & Villar, Antonio, 2021. "Group decisions from individual rankings: The Borda–Condorcet rule," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(2), pages 757-765.

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    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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