Objective indicators of health in Western Zambia

In this paper a short introduction is given to the general topic of health and health related indicators, emphasizing the need and the difficulty to construct indicators which are appropriate for specific situations and specific questions.

The non-existence of vital statistics in most Third World rural areas is then discussed, with comment on some solutions proposed to generate health indicators from defective data.

It is argued that the problem becomes more urgent with the growing attention for primary health care programmes. A new indicator is then introduced, called the Survival Index, which is basically the relation between gravidity number and number of children alive. This indicator is illustrated with some preliminary data.

The possible uses and restrictions are discussed and indications are given for further research needed for development of this indicator or related types.