Resources developed as part of the “Social Inequalities in Health” program, 2013–2015: “Socioeconomic Variables” fact sheets, “Social Disadvantage Indices” fact sheets, and resources for understanding the concept of vulnerability in public health

The French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) and, subsequently, Santé publique France, as part of their mandate—to monitor the health of the population and its determinants—must document social inequalities in health (SIH) and ensure that systems are in place to monitor them. However, while the consideration of social determinants of health has long been part of some of Santé publique France’s surveillance systems, this is not done in a systematic and consistent manner across all of the Agency’s programs. Based on this observation, in January 2013, the InVS General Directorate decided to establish a cross-cutting program titled “Social Inequalities in Health.” The creation of this program thus supports the goal of systematizing and standardizing practices within the agency. Over the 2013–2015 period, the program aimed to provide tools for incorporating social determinants of health into the InVS’s surveillance systems. These tools fall into two categories: first, measures of socioeconomic inequalities that can be used in public health surveillance systems and epidemiological surveys; and second, decision-support tools. This report summarizes the work carried out under this program and makes it available to stakeholders in the field as well as to the public. It presents the tools that facilitate the integration of the socioeconomic dimension into Santé publique France’s surveillance activities. These have been organized around three main areas: an individual approach focusing on socioeconomic variables that can be used in individual-level studies (surveys); an ecological approach focusing on social disadvantage indices that can be used in ecological-level studies (surveillance systems); and a definition of the concept of vulnerability for operational purposes.

Author(s): Gorza Maud, Eilstein Daniel

Publishing year: 2018

Pages: 108 p.

Collection: Methods

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