Advancing tools to promote health equity across European Union regions : The EURO-HEALTHY project

Population health measurements are recognised as appropriate tools to support public health monitoring. Yet, there is still a lack of tools that offer a basis for policy appraisal and for foreseeing impacts on health equity. In the context of persistent regional inequalities, it is critical to ascertain which regions are performing best, which factors might shape future health outcomes and where there is room for improvement. Under the EURO-HEALTHY project, tools combining the technical elements of multi-criteria value models and the social elements of participatory processes were developed to measure health in multiple dimensions and to inform policies. The flagship tool is the Population Health Index (PHI), a multidimensional measure that evaluates health from the lens of equity in health determinants and health outcomes, further divided into sub-indices. Foresight tools for policy analysis were also developed, namely: (1) scenarios of future patterns of population health in Europe in 2030, combining group elicitation with the Extreme-World method and (2) a multi-criteria evaluation framework informing policy appraisal (case study of Lisbon). Finally, a WebGIS was built to map and communicate the results to wider audiences. The Population Health Index was applied to all European Union (EU) regions, indicating which regions are lagging behind and where investments are most needed to close the health gap. Three scenarios for 2030 were produced - (1) the 'Failing Europe' scenario (worst case/increasing inequalities), (2) the 'Sustainable Prosperity' scenario (best case/decreasing inequalities) and (3) the 'Being Stuck' scenario (the EU and Member States maintain the status quo). Finally, the policy appraisal exercise conducted in Lisbon illustrates which policies have higher potential to improve health and how their feasibility can change according to different scenarios. The article makes a theoretical and practical contribution to the field of population health. Theoretically, it contributes to the conceptualisation of health in a broader sense by advancing a model able to integrate multiple aspects of health, including health outcomes and multisectoral determinants. Empirically, the model and tools are closely tied to what is measurable when using the EU context but offering opportunities to be upscaled to other settings

Measuring credibility of compensatory preference statements when trade-offs are interval determined

This paper studies how an overall fuzzy preference relation can be constructed in the compensatory context of the 'simple additive difference model', when imprecision on the trade-offs has to be taken into account. Three credibility indices of preferences are analysed and illustrated by a numerical example. Arguments are presented supporting the use of the third index, for which an interesting transitivity property (which was an open problem) is proved. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Determinação do valor de referência do aluguel de imóveis residenciais empregando o Método TODIM

As avaliações de alternativas em presença de múltiplos critérios, quantitativos e qualitativos, são realizadas nas mais diversas áreas. Este artigo apresenta um estudo dessa natureza, conduzido junto às imobiliárias da cidade de Volta Redonda, RJ, visando auxiliar a definição do valor de referência de aluguel de imóveis residenciais. Para isto, faz-se uso do método TODIM, do Apoio Multicritério à Decisão. Com a finalidade de obter os valores de referência o mais próximo possível dos valores de mercado, alguns imóveis que tinham acabado de ser alugados foram inseridos na pesquisa, conhecendo-se desta forma o seu valor de aluguel. Assim, ao empregar o Método TODIM para realizar a ordenação dos imóveis com diferentes características, em função dos critérios empregados na análise e de suas importâncias relativas para os decisores, obtém-se a ordenação de todos os imóveis, e, como conseqüência disto, chega-se às diversas faixas de valor de aluguel dos imóveis em estudo. Uma análise de sensibilidade dos resultados numéricos obtidos complementa o estudo.<br>Setting rent reference values for residential housing units is normally performed under multiple, conflicting criteria. This article shows how the TODIM method of Multicriteria Decision Aiding can be of a significant help in that task. A case study was carried through in the city of Volta Redonda, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The TODIM method allows considering quantitative as well as qualitative evaluation criteria and is founded on Prospect Theory. In order to obtain a maximum adherence of rent reference values to market values, some housing units that had just been rent were taken into account in the study. The application of the TODIM method produced the ordering of all such housing units and then led to identifying ranges for rent. A sensitivity analysis complemented the study by providing useful insights on the numerical results that were obtained