Health equity surveillance system

National governments also need to establish a national health equity surveillance system, with routine collection of data on social determinants of health and health inequity.

A health equity surveillance system routinely collects, collates and disseminates information on health, health inequities and health determinants in a coherent fashion. While most existing data systems only present country averages, a health equity surveillance system would present data stratified by social groups within countries, and would include measures of inequity in health and determinants between these groups. Moreover, while data on different social determinants of health are currently dispersed across a multitude of information systems, a health equity surveillance system would bring together in one place data on a broad range of social determinants of health.