The ICEH has been recalculating RMNCH indicators with an equity focus for the Countdown to 2030 and for the WHO Equity Monitor. Key health intervention coverage indicators are calculated at national level and by subgroups - wealth quintiles, maternal education, sex of the child, urban/rural area of residence and subnational regions.
Each estimate has its standard error presented. We also calculate equity measures for wealth, the concentration index and the slope index of inequality.
You can download from the link below all indicators and their definitions
Wealth quintiles
Description: The classification of households according to socioeconomic position (SEP) is based on asset indices. Household questionnaires collect information on household appliances (such as televisions, refrigerators, and other appliances), characteristics of the building (materials used for the walls, floor and roof, and presence of electricity, water supply and sanitary facilities), and other variables related to economic status (ownership of the house, of land or livestock). Initially, these variables are included in a principal component analysis (PCA) for all households in the sample, excluding variables that are only relevant for one domain (e.g. livestock or land size which only apply to rural areas). Next, two separate PCAs are carried out for urban and rural households, including all relevant variables in each domain, and the values of these scores are stored. Then, the results of the separate urban and rural PCAs are used to predict the joint PCA scores through linear regression. The intercept and slope from each of the two regressions are used to scale the urban and rural PCA scores for each household into a single, combined score. This is the asset index, which may then be split into quintiles.
Categories: Q1 (poorest) to Q5 (wealthiest)
Notes: Because of higher fertility and larger household sizes, Q1 typically includes more women and children than Q5, even though the numbers of households are similar (around 20%) in all quintiles.
Urban-rural residence
Description: Place of residence is based on criteria defined by each country.
Categories: urban or rural
Double stratification by wealth and residence
Description: This variable is a combination of wealth quintiles and place of residence.
Categories: Ten groups, ranging from rural Q1 to rural Q5, and urban Q1 to urban Q5.
Woman’s/maternal education
Description: This is based on the number of years studied or the level of education, as defined in each country.
Categories: Two classifications are available:
Note: Attendance at Koranic and other traditional schools is not considered.
Woman’s/maternal age
Description: Age of the woman or of the mother (for child health indicators) is expressed in completed years. For DHS, age at the time the child was born is used for antenatal, delivery and post-natal care indicators; for all other indicators, age at the time of the survey is used. For MICS, all indicators refer to the age at the time of the survey.
Categories: 15-17, 18-19, 20-34, 35-49 years; pooled results for 15-19 and 20-49 years also available.
Subnational regions
Description: Regions are based on the sampling domains used in each survey that allow
Categories: Variable number, depending on the sampling domains
Sex of the child
Description: Sex of the child as reported in the questionnaire
Categories: male or female
Ethnic group (for the Latin American and Caribbean region)
Description: The classification is based either on self-reported ethnicity, self-reported skin color or language spoken at home, depending on the information collected in each survey.
Categories: indigenous, afro-descendants, others (European, mestizo, etc.)
Note: the type of available information and the number of categories vary from survey to survey.