TY - JOUR
T1 - World health system performance revisited
T2 - the impact of varying the relative importance of health system goals
AU - Lauer, Jeremy A.
AU - Lovell, C. A.Knox
AU - Murray, Christopher J.L.
AU - Evans, David B.
PY - 2004/7/22
Y1 - 2004/7/22
N2 - Background: In 2002, the World Health Organization published a health system performance ranking for 191 member countries. The ranking was based on five indicators, with fixed weights common to all countries. Methods: We investigate the feasibility and desirability of using mathematical programming techniques that allow weights to vary across countries to reflect their varying circumstances and objectives. Results: By global distributional measures, scores and ranks are found to be not very sensitive to changes in weights, although differences can be large for individual countries. Conclusions: Building the flexibility of variable weights into calculation of the performance index is a useful way to respond to the debates and criticisms appearing since publication of the ranking.
AB - Background: In 2002, the World Health Organization published a health system performance ranking for 191 member countries. The ranking was based on five indicators, with fixed weights common to all countries. Methods: We investigate the feasibility and desirability of using mathematical programming techniques that allow weights to vary across countries to reflect their varying circumstances and objectives. Results: By global distributional measures, scores and ranks are found to be not very sensitive to changes in weights, although differences can be large for individual countries. Conclusions: Building the flexibility of variable weights into calculation of the performance index is a useful way to respond to the debates and criticisms appearing since publication of the ranking.
KW - health care provision
KW - weighting of indicators
KW - mathematical analysis
KW - health status indicator
KW - world health organization
KW - organization and management
KW - quality control
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=4544354477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/1472-6963-4-19
DO - 10.1186/1472-6963-4-19
M3 - Article
C2 - 15271220
AN - SCOPUS:4544354477
SN - 1472-6963
VL - 4
SP - 1
EP - 8
JO - BMC Health Services Research
JF - BMC Health Services Research
M1 - 19
ER -