Abstract

RODRIGUEZ MARTIN, José Antonio  and  SALINAS FERNANDEZ, José Antonio. An index of maternal and child health in the least developed countries of Asia. Gac Sanit [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.2, pp.190-192. ISSN 0213-9111.

In this article, we propose a new index to measure maternal and child health in the least developed countries (LDCs) of Asia. This new index is applied to a group of countries particularly affected by poverty, which, in the terminology of the United Nations' Conference on Trade and Development, are the poorest of the poor. Our index has been designed by including the variables defined in the Goals of the Millennium Declaration. For this purpose, we used the P₂ distance method for 2008, the last year for which data were available. This index integrates variables of maternal and child health that allow territorial ordering of the LDCs in terms of these partial indicators. This analysis is particularly useful in a scenario such as the LDCs of Asia, which are beset by profound social and economic inequalities.

Keywords : Least developed countries of Asia; Maternal and child health; P₂ measurement of distance; Synthetic indicators; Territorial disparities.

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