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• Creating small-areas deprivation indices at a European level
  Guy Launoy, Elodie Guillaume, Ludivine Launay, Quentin Rollet, Josephine Bryere, Olivier Dejardin and Cyrille Delpierre
  Published on: 25 October 2019

• Published on: 25 October 2019

  Creating small-areas deprivation indices at a European level

  • Guy Launoy, Professor in Public Health Inserm, UMR1086, Université Caen Normandie, CHU Caen, France
  • Other Contributors:
    • Elodie Guillaume, University Ingeneer
    • Ludivine Launay, Ingeneer
    • Quentin Rollet, Ph D Student
    • Josephine Bryere, Senior Lecturer
    • Olivier Dejardin, Ingeneer
    • Cyrille Delpierre, Research Director

  In their article (1) Allik et al. proposes a very interesting contribution on the principles and options for the construction of deprivation indices. About weighting indicators, they referred to the European deprivation index (EDI), an index aiming at using a unique methodology for all European Union, and advised to rather be “guided by theory and the specific context of each country” than data-driven. We totally agree that deprivation indices need to be theory driven. The construction of EDI is then guided by this approach. EDI is indeed based on the fundamental concept of relative poverty defined by the material impossibility of accessing basic needs that correspond to the average standard of living in a given country. This theoretical development was proposed by Townsend and Gordon in various publications at the end of the 20th century. In order to propose a measure of relative poverty that should be as comparable as possible between European countries, these basic needs have been defined specifically in each country from the same European database (EUSILC) with the same methodology.
  This country–specific basics needs were then tested through regression analyzes to make sure that they were well correlated with objective and subjective poverty, here again specifically in each country, and that additivity, validity and reliability were preserved. Finally, we selected by regression analysis the country-specific combination of features the most correlated to these bas...

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  In their article (1) Allik et al. proposes a very interesting contribution on the principles and options for the construction of deprivation indices. About weighting indicators, they referred to the European deprivation index (EDI), an index aiming at using a unique methodology for all European Union, and advised to rather be “guided by theory and the specific context of each country” than data-driven. We totally agree that deprivation indices need to be theory driven. The construction of EDI is then guided by this approach. EDI is indeed based on the fundamental concept of relative poverty defined by the material impossibility of accessing basic needs that correspond to the average standard of living in a given country. This theoretical development was proposed by Townsend and Gordon in various publications at the end of the 20th century. In order to propose a measure of relative poverty that should be as comparable as possible between European countries, these basic needs have been defined specifically in each country from the same European database (EUSILC) with the same methodology.
  This country–specific basics needs were then tested through regression analyzes to make sure that they were well correlated with objective and subjective poverty, here again specifically in each country, and that additivity, validity and reliability were preserved. Finally, we selected by regression analysis the country-specific combination of features the most correlated to these basic needs among the common variables in EUSILC and the national census of the country concerned. Detailed construction was described previously (2)
  Conversely to what Allik et al. interpretation might suggest, we have never thought of proposing to all European countries to use the French version of EDI, but proposed to each country included in EUSILC the same theory–based methodology to allow comparability while accounting for each specific context.
  Even if national policies is capable to some extent to curb rising inequality, we think Europe is the most relevant level to analyze and tackle health inequalities. Thanks to the extension of the construction of trans-cultural deprivation index in a growing number of European countries (3), several studies have been carried out in recent years on different aspects of social inequalities of health in a comparative way between different European countries (4,5)
  1- Allik M, Leyland A, Ichiara MYT, Dundas R. Creating small-area deprivation indices: a guide for stage and options. J Epidemiol Comm Health. 2019;0 1-6. Doi:10.1136/jech.2019-213255
  2- Pornet C, Delpierre C, Dejardin O, Grosclaude P, Launay L, Guittet L,Lang T, Launoy G. Construction of an adaptable European transnational ecological deprivation index: the French version J Epidemiol Comm Health . 2012 Nov;66(11):982-9.
  3- Guillaume E, Pornet C, Dejardin O, Launay L, Lillini R, Vercelli M, Marí-Dell’Olmo M, Fernández- Fontelo A, Borrell C, Ribeiro AI, Fatima de Pina M, Mayer A, Delpierre C, Rachet B, Launoy G. Development of a cross-cultural deprivation index in five European countries. J Epidemiol Comm Health 2016 May;70(5):493-9
  4- Ribeiro AI, Fraga S, Kelly-Irving M, Delpierre C, Stringhini S, Kivimaki M, Joost S, Guessous I, Gandini M, Vineis P, Barros H.Neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation and allostatic load: a multi-cohort study. Sci Rep. 2019 Jun 19;9(1):8790.
  5- Robinson O, Tamayo I, de Castro M et al. The Urban Exposome during Pregnancy and Its Socioeconomic Determinants. Env Health Perspectives 2018 ; 126 ;7.

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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