Examining Socioeconomic Health Disparities Using the Rényi Index

• Activity Number: 40
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 4, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Health Policy Statistics Section
• Author(s): Makram Talih*+
• Companies: National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: Epidemiological methods ; Health inequalities ; Concentration curve ; SES gradient ; Surveillance data ; Survey data

Abstract

The relative index of inequality and the (extended) concentration index are summary measures of health disparities that reflect the socioeconomic dimension to inequalities in health. I will show how a general alternative can be constructed using the Rényi index, which is based on a generalized Rényi divergence. The Rényi index is robust to small changes in the disease distribution. It is also reference-invariant, which means that it does not depend on the reference level used for evaluating disparities between groups. I will illustrate the proposed method using data related to the Cancer Topic Area in the U.S. Healthy People 2020 initiative. One of four overarching goals of Healthy People 2020 is to achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups.