New Graphical Displays and Related Statistical Measures of Health Disparities Among Groups

Music City Center 

Different methods for describing health disparities in distributions of continuous health-related variables among race/ethnic or socioeconomic groups provide more insight into the nature of disparities than comparisons of measures of central tendency. Transformations of the Lorenz curve and analogues of the Gini index used in the analysis of income inequality are adapted to provide graphical and analytical measures of health disparities. Akin to the classical Peters-Belson regression method for partitioning a disparity into a component explained by group differences in a set of covariates and an unexplained component, a new modified Lorenz curve is proposed. We explore statistical properties of these estimators through simulation studies and present three application examples: 1.) disparities in BMI between Non-Hispanic Black and Non-Hispanic White women in the U.S. based on the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2013-2018, 2.) blood lead levels of children across race/ethnic groups from NHANES 1988-1994, and 3.) Driving distance to nearest acute care hospital across census block urbanicity levels.

Health Disparity

Lorenz Curve 

Health Policy Statistics Section