World Health Report 2000: how it removes equity from the agenda for public health monitoring and policyCommentary: comprehensive approaches are needed for full understanding

Table 1 Rankings and absolute values of 44 countries on inequalities in child survival according to World Health Report 2000 and World Bank data on socioeconomic inequalities in child survival ( poor:rich ratio of child mortality, concentration index and average child mortality). Ranking of 1= least inequality and 44= greatest inequality for all measures
 

*Relative ranking among this subset of 44 countries based on the report’s ranking of 191 countries.

†Ratio of child mortality rates among poorest 20% and richest 20% of a country’s population, classifying people socioeconomically according to ownership of major household assets.[7]

‡For each country, the concentration index (whose value can vary between -1 and +1) measures the extent to which child mortality is distributed unequally across five different socioeconomic groups of equal size, based on ownership of household assets. The closer the index is to zero, the less concentrated is inequality in child mortality according to wealth; the further away the index is from zero, the greater the inequality. The sign on the index (negative or positive) reflects the direction of the relation of an indicator with poverty and inequality.[7] Negative values in this table indicate an inverse correlation with wealth.

§Number of deaths of children under 5 years of age divided by 1000 live births.[7]