Iranian Journal of

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The term "health inequalities" is not a descriptive one: it refers to discrepancies in morbidity and mortality, life expectancy, disability life adjusted years, etc that are due to differences in such factors as socioeconomic status, gender and race/ethnicity. Socio-economic inequalities are the differences in health status (e.g. disease prevalence and incidence rates) across various socio-economic groups. In Europe, measuring socio-economic health inequalities has long been a major research topic. However, there have been relatively few experimental studies in Asia, especially in developing countries. In the social context, measurement of socio-economic status is based on income, educational level and employment status. Stratifying the socio-economic groups based on a hierarchy identifies the pattern of morbidity and mortality in each socio-economic stratum. It also shows the exact relationship between socio-economic status and health. The main data sources for determination of population health status and measuring health inequalities are registries and cross-sectional surveys. It seems that monitoring, prevention and evaluation of health inequalities, especially with a focus on socio-economic level has been neglected in developing countries, including Iran. Due to the lack of formal registries on population health status in these countries, designing cross-sectional and population-based studies would be a useful approach in the prevention and monitoring of health inequalities.

Keywords: Health inequalities, Socio-economic inequalities in health, Socio-economic status, Epidemiologic studies

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