Psychology Health Indicators Infant Mortality

Question :

Write a 700- to 1,050-word response to the following questions from Culture and Psychology.

Three indicators of health have been studied worldwide—infant mortality, life expectancy, and subjective well-being.

What other indicators do you think are important for assessing a country’s health and well-being? How would you measure it?

Answer :

1 Health Indicators and Their Measurements

Infant mortality, life expectancy and subjective well-being are most popular and effectively used health indicators across the world.  However, few other WHO recommended health indicators such as maternal mortality ratio, safely managed drinking water facilities, and obesity in children under 5 years could additionally be used to evaluate a country’s health and general well-being (World Health Organization, 2015). 

1.1.1 Maternal Mortality Rate

This is expressed as maternal deaths per 100000 live births for a particular period of time. There can be various data collection sources such as household surveys and vital registration systems. This particular issue is considered vital although it is rare and multiple indicator survey (MICS4) can be used as a measurement technique in which the survey respondents are asked about survival of sisters. Also, a special study known as the Reproductive Age Mortality Studies (RAMOS) can be applied which uses contextual sources to determine mortality rate of women of reproductive age, from which deaths related to pregnancy can be ascertained.

1.1.2 Safely Managed Drinking Water

The measurement of this indicator is based on data collected from household survey or census in combination with water quality data directly from households or administrative records. For the purpose of surveys standard questionnaires promoted by WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program on Water Supply and Sanitation can be used.

1.1.3 Obesity in Children Under 5 Years

The data sources for the measurement of this indicator consists of national nutrition surveys and other population based surveys. It is measured by the percentage of children under 5 years of age who are overweight. Here, overweight refers to more than two standard deviations of the WHO Child Growth Standards prescribed median weight for height values for children between 0 to 59 months of age. 

2 References

Agyemang, P., & Powell-Wiley, T. (2013). Obesity and Black Women: Special Considerations Related to Genesis and Therapeutic Approaches. Curr Cardiovasc Risk Rep. , 378–386.

Leighton, A., & Hughes, J. (2005). Cultures as a Causative of Mental Disorder. The Milbank Quaterly.

SAMHSA. (2018). National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH): African Americans. 

Ward, E., Wiltshire, J., Detry, M., & Dr. Brown, R. (2013). AfricanAmerican Men and Women's Attitude Toward Mental Illness, Perceptions of Stigma, and Preferred Coping Behaviors. Nurs Res. , 185–194.

World Health Organization. (2015). Global Reference List of 100 crore Health Indicators. Luxembourg: WHO Press.