WHO Interactive Atlases on Health Equity in Europe

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One of the goals of the project is to improve availability of and access to evidence on inequalities in health system performance, including quality of care and the structural determinants of such inequalities across countries and regions in Europe.

To meet this goal, publicly available socioeconomic and health-related indicators from EUROSTAT databases have been used to produce the atlases. The NUTS 2 regions are the main geographical units of analysis. Variables displayed in maps, graphs and tables represent more than 600 individual indicators.

The atlases aim not only to provide more visibility to the sub-national patterns of health and their determinants but also to analyse how such an integrated information system and its underlying data can inform policy across European countries. 

The added value is to: 

• improve insight into the regional dimension of social inequalities in health across counties; 
• provide a tool for increased engagement of the public and the media in the dialogue with the competent authorities on health policy and action; and 
• provide a pilot for a more regular monitoring and assessment of the magnitude of social inequalities in health and the impact of the relevant policies, interventions and services.

To analyse and display data, following interactive atlases have been developed in the project:

1. Correlation map atlas allows a quick visualization of two variables in maps and their association in a graph, where correlation analysis can also be performed. You may use the filter function to select only one country or country group.
2. Atlases of social inequalities allow visualization of difference between the target value and the value in a region or group of regions. The target value is the population weighted average of the most advantaged quintile of the population. Differences between the target and the individual region are visualized as absolute differences (area target differences) and as relative differences (area target ratios).
3. Regional comparison atlas allows quick comparison of several key indicators between a limited numbers of regions. Please use the Ctrl key and mouse to select the regions of interest.

Hat tip: David McDaid via the JISC Health Equity Network