Measuring Health Inequalities: A Toolkit

We developed this toolkit to assist analysts and researchers with measuring and reporting on health inequalities.

Throughout all phases, it is beneficial to engage stakeholders, partners and subject matter experts to ensure that the health inequalities you measure and report on are relevant, valid and actionable to health system decision-makers and the communities they serve.

Plan your analysis

What is covered

Learn approaches for accessing equity stratifier data (socio-demographic variables) and how to scope your analysis by selecting which equity stratifiers are relevant for your analysis.

Go to the Planning page

How it can help you

  • Identify commonly used equity stratifiers
  • Conduct a literature review to select relevant equity stratifiers
  • Explore approaches to access equity stratifier data 

Analyze your data

What is covered

Learn the steps involved in carrying out a stratified analysis and how to quantify health inequalities using simple and complex measures.

Go to the Analysis page

How it can help you

  • Define your health indicator
  • Obtain and categorize your data into population subgroups
  • Quantify inequalities by calculating simple and complex summary measures

Report your findings

What is covered

Learn how to identify and report key findings from your health inequalities analysis.

Go to the Reporting page

How it can help you

  • Interpret your results to identify key findings
  • Present findings to your audience
  • Review literature and data to consider the context and impact of findings

Contact us

If you have a disability and would like CIHI information in a different format, visit our Accessibility page.