Poverty and Health Monitoring Report
Health data at the national level do not reveal the inequalities associated with poverty within a country; therefore national progress toward health goals can be made without much improvement in the health status of the poor. Poverty quintile analy...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/04/16280478/poverty-health-monitoring-report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13578 |
| Summary: | Health data at the national level do not
reveal the inequalities associated with poverty within a
country; therefore national progress toward health goals can
be made without much improvement in the health status of the
poor. Poverty quintile analysis is useful here: it
disaggregates data on health indicators by the socioeconomic
status of households. In this report it is used to study the
levels and trends in health inequalities in developing
countries. Narrower gaps were evident between the rich and
poor on knowledge-related indicators than on
practice-related ones. Preventive interventions such as
immunization were more equitable across quintiles, while
there were more inequities in curative care. Reproductive
health indicators showed some of the largest gaps between
the rich and poor. Geographically, some regions such as
Europe and Central Asia had more equitable health
indicators, while others such as South Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa reported larger gaps between the rich and poor. The
current levels of progress are insufficient for adequately
reducing inequalities, and the poor are at risk of being
left behind unless countries take the necessary steps to
expand health care to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. |
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