The local Socio-Economic Health Deprivation Index: methods and results

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Socio-economics
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Socio-economic (SE) deprivation indexes quantify population hardship.
• Constructed 10 Socio-Economic and Health Deprivation Indexes (SEHDI) using a novel method.
• SEHDIs facilitate investigation into SE inequalities and health outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To construct 10 Socio-Economic and Health Deprivation Indexes (SEHDI).
• To enable the study of relationships between SE inequalities and population health/prevention.
• To validate the constructed SEHDIs against existing SE and mortality data.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 2011 Census data (CT level) for demographic and SE information.
• Employed PCA factor analysis on variables correlated with mortality SMRs after collinearity checks.
• Validated SEHDIs using ANOVA by comparing with 2011 Census SE indexes and cause-specific mortality trends.

Main Results:

• Computed SEHDIs for 10 distinct areas, reflecting local SE and health deprivation.
• Achieved good explained variance (49.1%-72.2%) with linear distributions of SE indices and mortality.
• Findings align with literature on SE status and population health relationships.

Conclusions:

• SEHDIs effectively identify SE inequalities impacting population health.
• The indexes depict cause-of-death distributions sensitive to SE factors and social support.
• Results support targeted health promotion and prevention interventions based on deprivation characteristics.