A Child Health Index for Sweden’s 290 Municipalities

This broad survey of children’s health and wellbeing in Sweden’s 290 municipalities converts freely available national data to a set of 13 high quality indicators, and makes local surveillance and comparisons possible. Combining the indicators, using equal weights, into relevant domains as 5 sub-indices and then again into one summary index provides one index for the great picture, sub-indices for the various domains of child health and separate indicators for the detailed study of the basic components. This creates a simplified tool for decision makers and professionals in their task to monitor children’s health on the local level. Children’s health in the Swedish municipalities is generally good, with a mean Child Health Index of 88 out of 100, ranging from 81 to 93. Children in economically disadvantaged municipalities have, with few exceptions, more health problems and worse preconditions for health. The indicators Socio-economic standard, Tobacco in utero, Smoking households and Teenage abortions explain most of the municipality variations. But the broader range of indicators gives more information and is a better tool to consider strengths and weaknesses for each municipality, and is thus more useful for policy-oriented efforts. The real value of this kind of monitoring lies in a succession of comparable surveys. The generous, free and easily available data are not available in all other countries, but matters such as philosophy and design, indicator definitions and index constructions might be considered in other regions looking for ways to monitor children’s health and wellbeing on local levels.