Multidimensional Indices of Health Disparities Among Adults Aged 45-64 in the 20 Most Populous States in the United States: Results from the National Health Interview Survey

• Activity Number: 495 - Collaborative Research on Measures of Health Disparities
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 2, 2017 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): Makram Talih* and Maria A Villarroel
• Companies: National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: Complex survey data ; Health inequalities ; Summary indices ; Ranking variability ; Rescaled bootstrap

Abstract

Using data from the National Health Interview Survey, we demonstrate the construction of overall, multidimensional health disparities indices that aggregate disparities among adults aged 45-64 in four selected core measures of health--healthy behaviors, access to medical care, general physical and mental health status, and absence of multiple chronic conditions--across five population attributes--sex, race and Hispanic origin, educational attainment, urbanicity of county of residence, and disability status. As a corollary, the 20 most populous states in the United States are ranked by their scores on the health disparities indices constructed. The dependence of such rankings on survey sampling variability as well as measurement assumptions and choices is discussed.