WHO Health Equity Assessment Toolkit Plus (HEAT Plus)
HEAT Plus is a software tool developed by the World Health Organization that helps users analyze and compare health inequalities using their own data. It supports assessments at global, national, or subnational levels across various health indicators and inequality dimensions.
At a glance
Use when
Assessing within-country or cross-country health inequalities using custom datasets; monitoring progress toward health equity goals; supporting policy development focused on reducing disparities
Avoid when
Working with non-representative or poor-quality data; needing mobile platform compatibility; requiring advanced visualization features not yet implemented
Inputs
User-uploaded datasets containing health indicators and stratification variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, education, residence)
Outputs
Stratified analysis results, inequality measures (e.g., disparity indices, concentration indices), visualizations of health inequities
How it works
HEAT Plus is an open-source software application that enables the upload and analysis of custom datasets to measure health inequalities across different dimensions such as socioeconomic status, education, and geography. It supports inequality metrics and operates on Windows and Macintosh platforms. The tool facilitates stratified analysis of health indicators and visualization of disparities, with planned enhancements including interactive graphs, maps, and multilingual support.
- HTA domains
- Clinical Effectiveness, Organisational aspects, Patient and Social Aspects
- Categories
- Data Exploration & VisualizationData Quality AssessmentReporting Standards & Best Practice
- Assumptions
- Data are representative of the population; health indicators can be meaningfully disaggregated by dimensions of inequality; users have sufficient data quality and metadata
- Strengths
- Open-source and freely available; supports custom data uploads; operates across multiple inequality dimensions; applicable at various geographic levels; developed and backed by WHO
- Limitations
- Currently limited to Windows and Mac platforms; requires users to have technical capacity to prepare and upload datasets; lacks real-time interactive maps and multilingual interfaces in current version
- Also known as
- HEAT Plus, Health Equity Assessment Toolkit Plus
Questions this answers
- › How do health outcomes vary across different population groups?
- › What are the levels of health inequality within a country or region?
- › Which dimensions of inequality (e.g., wealth, education, location) show the greatest disparities in health indicators?
- › How have health inequalities changed over time within a population?
- › What is the magnitude of health inequities for specific indicators at national or subnational levels?
- › How do health inequalities compare across countries or regions?
References & sources
Similar by meaning
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