COMMENTS ON HEALTH INDICATORS: METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

This paper discusses several basic conceptual and methodological problems in the development and use of health indicators. We observe that two tendencies of the health indicators movement may deter progress toward producing information useful in decision making, namely, the quest for elegant mathema...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of health services 1976-01, Vol.6 (3), p.509-520
Main Author: Bice, Thomas W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Decision Making
Health Status Indicators
Health Surveys
Humans
Methods
Models, Theoretical
Perspectives
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Summary:This paper discusses several basic conceptual and methodological problems in the development and use of health indicators. We observe that two tendencies of the health indicators movement may deter progress toward producing information useful in decision making, namely, the quest for elegant mathematical formulations of health status indexes and the tendency to conceptualize "health" in terms of expansive definitions. To improve the utility of such information, it is suggested that health indicators should measure variables specified by a social system model and should be scaled according to units that are relevant to decision-making criteria.
ISSN:0020-7314
1541-4469
DOI:10.2190/1A2A-5JNB-DB35-VWX7