A Suggested Method for Constructing Indices of Morbidity

Measurement of the health of a country or of a group within it has usually been approached by means of mortality statistics, e.g. crude or standardised death rates or infant mortality rate. In this article a method using morbidity data is presented. It is suggested that particular aspects of health and possible aetiological factors may be investigated using appropriately constructed indices; an overall picture is obtainable if a well chosen set of such indices is used. An important consideration is the type of data to be used; reasons are given for preferring that obtained from morbidity surveys.