International and National HealthInformation on Basic Health Indicators:A Comparison

Abstract

Health indicators play a key role for analysis of health situation and for decision-makers. This paper aims to analyze different documents on basic health indicators to see which provide comparable information. The research begins with integrating basic health indicators, followed by analysis of the mathematical validity of the indicators and their relationships and concludes with analyzing and presenting such research data. Performing basic arithmetic operations allowed us to verify that 90% of indicators from PAHO/WHO Glossary, 89% from the Americas and 91% from Mexico are mathematically valid. When comparing indicators, only Demographic indicators, more than 50% from the Americas and Mexico are related to the PAHO/WHO indicators, which poses a challenge when comparing health indicators at international and national level according to the revised documents