Using an urban child health index to detect intra-urban disparities in Sweden

Children's health is affected by the environment in which they live and grow. Within Sweden's urban areas, several city districts can be classified as socio-economically disadvantaged. This article describes the creation of a child health index to visualise disparities within and between Sweden's three major cities, and how these relate to indicators of demography and socio-economic status.

Data were collected for seven child health indicators and seven socio-economic and demographic indicators from the Swedish Pregnancy Register, Child Health Services and Statistics Sweden. An index was created from the health indicators using principal component analysis, generating weights for each indicator. Correlations between index outcomes and socio-economic and demographic indicators were analysed using linear regression.

The largest variance in index values could be seen in Stockholm followed by Malmö, and the poorest mean index outcome was seen in Malmö followed by Gothenburg. The largest intra-urban percentage range in health indicators could be seen for tobacco exposure at 0-4 weeks (0.8-33.9%, standard deviation (SD)=8.8%) and, for the socio-economic and demographic indicators, foreign background (19.9-88.5%, SD=19.8%). In the multivariate analysis, index outcomes correlated most strongly with foreign background (R²=0.364, p=0.001).

Children's health follows a social gradient and a pattern of ethnic segregation in Swedish cities, where it can be visualised using an index of child health. The resulting map highlights the geographical distribution of these disparities, and displays in which city districts child health interventions may be most needed.