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The Measurement of Health and Health Status
The Measurement of Health and Health Status
It is important to understand how health is measured on a global scale. There are some metrics for assessing health and well-
being that are unique to global health contexts. For this SLP Assignment:
. Life expectancy is the most commonly used measure to aggregate mortality data in order to describe a
population's health. It measures how many years, on average, a person is expected to live based on current age and
sex-specific death rates.
M onitor the health status to identify and solve community health problems includes the accurate diagnosis of the
community's health status; identification of threats to health and assessment of health service needs; timely collection,
1. Define the following and provide an example for each Key Health Status Indicator:
Handbook of Vital Statistics Systems and Methods, Volume 1: Legal, Organisational and Technical Aspects, United
Nations Studies in Methods, Glossary, Series F, No. 35, United Nations, New York 1991.
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/infantmortality.htm
https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm
Venice, Italy
22 June 2009
Health systems performance assessment: debates, methods and empiricism. Mathers CD, et al. Methods for
Measuring Healthy Life Expectancy. In: Murray CJL, Evans D, eds. Health systems performance assessment:
debates, methods and empiricism. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2003.
Disability-adjusted life year (DALY)
Murray CJ et al. Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a
systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet,380(9859): 2197-223, 2012.
2. If you could select only one indicator to describe the health status of a developing country, which indicator would you pick
and why?
Be sure to use credible, professional, and scholarly sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles from the Online Library, and
government, university, or nonprofit organizations’ Web sites.
Length: 3-4 pages (excluding the cover page and reference list), double-spaced.