Health inequalities: data introduction

There is a lack of accurate and comprehensive data for measuring and monitoring many aspects of health inequalities – this is especially true for inequalities related to issues such as ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation etc.

In terms of socio-economic inequalities in health, the many ways in which these can be measured is almost as complex as the nature of the inequalities themselves. First, ‘health’ can be assessed in terms of a variety of outcomes: for example self-assessed measures of physical and mental health, overall life expectancy, mortality or hospitalisation rates for particular diseases. Second, there is a multitude of social and economic factors that can be taken into account (income, education, neighbourhood, social class etc.). Third, levels of inequality between groups can be calculated using a wide variety of statistical methods. This section presents a very small number of different indicators of socio-economic health inequality; the References section includes links to comprehensive guides to the measurement of health inequalities.

Note also that further examples of socio-economic inequalities are presented within a number of topic pages of the website: for example, see mortality rates by area deprivation for all-causes, suicide, coronary heart disease, stroke and many more. Some limited information on ethnicity-related health inequalities is also available. The ScotPHO Profiles also include data on health and health determinants for small geographical areas across Scotland: these therefore also enable comparison on some aspects of health and health related (geographical) inequality. 

The table below shows the dimensions and geographies for which deaths data are presented within the data pages which follow.