Measuring the health of people in places: A scoping review of OECD member countries

Abstract

A scoping review was performed to identify how Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries measure overall health for sub-national geographies within each country. Sixty publications were selected from MEDLINE, Scopus and Google Scholar, plus information extracted from 37 of 38 OECD countries statistical agency and/or public health institute websites that were available in English. Data sources varied by categorisation into national statistical agency mortality (n=7) or population-level survey morbidity (n=5) health indicators. Region was the most common geographic scale (e.g., eight indicators for 26 countries), slightly fewer indicators for urban areas (max countries per most frequent indicator=24), followed by municipality (range of 1-14 countries per indicator). Other geographies, particularly those at smaller granularity, were infrequently available across health indicators and countries. Wider availability of health indicators at smaller, and non-administrative, geographies is needed to explore the best way to measure comparative population health in local areas.