Abstract
BackgroundDesigning public health policies to target the needs of specific places requires highly granular data. When geographic health statistics from official sources are absent or lacking in spatial detail, Sanitary Vulnerability metrics derived from Census and other georeferenced public data can be used to identify areas in particular need of attention. With that aim, a Vulnerability Map was developed, identifying areas with a substantial deficit in its population health coverage. As a result a novel methodology for measuring Sanitary Vulnerability is presented, that can potentially be applied to different time periods or geographies.MethodsCensus, official listings of public health facilities and crowdsourced georeferenced data are used. The Vulnerability Index is built using dimensionality reduction techniques such as Autoencoders and Non-parametric PCA.Main resultsThe high resolution map shows the geographical distribution of a Sanitary Vulnerability Index, produced using official and crowdsourced open data sources, overcoming the lack of official sources on health indicators at the local level.ConclusionsThe Sanitary Vulnerability Map’s value as a tool for place specific policymaking was validated by using it to predict local health related metrics such as health coverage. Further lines of work contemplate using the Map to study the interaction between Sanitary Vulnerability and the prevalence of different diseases, and also applying its methodology in the context of other public services such as education, security, housing, etc.
Highlights
Designing public health policies to target the needs of specific places requires highly granular data
In “Methods” section we discuss the operative definitions for the indicators shown in the Map, we report the sources of information, the procedures and techniques used to process and analyze the information and we explain the different analytical methods used for the estimation of the Sanitary Vulnerability Index
The two dimensions mentioned before were combined into a georeferenced Sanitary Vulnerability Index that was projected onto the territory as a Sanitary Vulnerability Map
Summary
Designing public health policies to target the needs of specific places requires highly granular data. Alternative methods, such as expert surveys (e.g. the Delphi Method) or population surveys, require fieldwork and Rosati et al International Journal for Equity in Health (2020) 19:204 dedicated resources representing significant costs, in particular when rural or hard to access areas are involved. We apply this methodology in Argentina, a country with fragmented statistical data and highly unequal in terms of sub-national economic development, paired with a vast territory with dispersed population in rural areas
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