A new notion of partition-determined functions is introduced, and several basic inequalities are developed for the entropy of such functions of independent random variables, as well as for cardinalities of compound sets obtained using these functions. Here a compound set means a set obtained by varying each argument of a function of several variables over a set associated with that argument, wh...

Accepted for publication 24 February 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D espite ample empirical evidence of socioeconomic differences in health since the mid-19th century, concern about the problem of measurement of health inequalities did not appear until 1991. In that year, Wagstaff et al cautioned that the conclusions reached by different authors about trends in health inequ...

1 Division of Health and Human Development, Public Policy and Health Program, Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C., United States of America. Send correspondence to: J. Norberto W. Dachs, Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C., United States of America; e-mail: [email protected] Most of the papers on health equity in this issue of the Revista Panamericana de Salud Públ...

BACKGROUND Existing studies are divided as to whether social inequalities in health widen or converge as people age. In part this is due to reliance on cross-sectional data, but also among longitudinal studies to differences in the measurement of both socioeconomic status (SES) and health and in the treatment of survival effects. The aim of this paper is to examine social inequalities in health...

INTRODUCTION Regular reporting of health inequalities is essential to monitoring progress of efforts to reduce health inequalities. While reporting of population health became increasingly common, reporting of a subpopulation group breakdown of each indicator of the health of the population is rarely a standard practice. This study reports education-, sex-, and race-related inequalities in four...