Chung Gary Ka-Ki, Robinson Mark, Marmot Michael, Woo Jean
CUHK Institute of Health Equity, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia.
Lancet Reg Health West Pac. 2022 Nov 11;31:100636. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100636. eCollection 2023 Feb.
In many developed countries such as the UK and Australia, addressing socioeconomic inequalities in health is a priority in their policy agenda, with well-established practices and authorities to collect and link selected health and social indicators for long-term monitoring. Nonetheless, the monitoring of socioeconomic inequalities in health in Hong Kong remains in a piecemeal manner. Also, the common international practice to monitor inequalities at area level appears to be unsuitable in Hong Kong due to its small, compact, and highly interconnected built environment that limits the variation of neighbourhood deprivation level. To enhance inequality monitoring in Hong Kong, we aim to draw reference and lesson from the UK and Australia to explore the feasible steps forward regarding collection of health indicators and contextually appropriate equity stratifiers with strong implication on policy actions, and discuss potential strategies to promote the public awareness and motivations for a more comprehensive inequality monitoring system.
在许多发达国家，如英国和澳大利亚，解决健康方面的社会经济不平等问题是其政策议程中的优先事项，有完善的做法和机构来收集和关联选定的健康与社会指标以进行长期监测。然而，香港对健康方面社会经济不平等的监测仍处于零散状态。此外，由于香港地域狭小、布局紧凑且高度相互关联的建成环境限制了邻里贫困水平的差异，国际上常用的在地区层面监测不平等的做法在香港似乎并不适用。为加强香港的不平等监测，我们旨在借鉴英国和澳大利亚的经验教训，探索在收集健康指标以及确定对政策行动有重大影响且符合实际情况的公平分层标准方面可行的前进步骤，并讨论促进公众对更全面的不平等监测系统的认识和积极性的潜在策略。
