Aspiration for health care system improvement can be observed in almost
each country. However the health policy activities should be based
on comprehensive and reliable information about current health status
of population, health care system performance valuation and monitoring,
health needs and identification of priorities in the health sector.
The information can be efficiently collected and presented in the form
of health indicators. The health indicators application in the epidemiology
is obvious, but rapid growth of health expenditures in the last years
causes considerable increase of interest in the problems of wider usage
of health indicators.
If we assume wide health indicators definition they could be divided into
four groups, depending on the field they concern: indicators of population
characteristics, indicators of individual and population health status,
indicators of non-medical determinants of health and indicators of
health system performance.
The analysis of health indicators indicates their following functions:
information, diagnosis, planning, comparing, prognosis, monitoring,
evaluation. Many indicators may perform different functions, depending
on the level of usage and the main aims defined.
keywords in Polish:
wskaźniki zdrowotne, wskaźniki społeczne, funkcje wskaźników zdrowotnych, klasyfikacja wskaźników zdrowotnych
keywords in English:
health indicators, social indicators, functions of health indicators, health indicators classification
affiliation:
Wydział Nauk o Zdrowiu : Instytut Zdrowia Publicznego