Tracking our Nation’s Health: Developing a Composite Leading Indicator for Progress in Equity and Well-Being
| dc.contributor.author | Chai Jia Er | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-08-20T06:59:27Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description | Equity and well-being are important topics to track a nation’s health. As the traditional economic indicators, like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is insufficient and lagging to provide clear understanding of disparities in income distribution, access to resources, environmental sustainability. Persistent disparities in healthcare, education, and regional development give consequences to achieve equity and well-being in Malaysia although the economic growth in Malaysia is steadily increasing. In line with global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), this study adds to the larger conversation on multidimensional indicators. The results highlight how crucial it is to have a holistic approach to national development, incorporating environmental and socioeconomic aspects to improve equity and well-being. By creating Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) to monitor developments in equity and well-being to address these gaps. The CLI offers a more comprehensive method of accessing national health by combining multidimensional factors like income distribution, poverty rate, leisure time and environmental quality as well as geographic equity. Human Development Index (HDI), Healthy Life Expectancy Gap (HALEG), Government Health Expenditure per capita (GHE) was chosen as the reference series at the outset of the research’s methodical approach. To guarantee comparability, component series including socioeconomic and environmental variables were found and normalised. To ensure robustness, statistical techniques were employed includes concordance analysis, correlation analysis, and the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). To identify cyclical patterns and structural shifts in equity and well-being, turning point analysis was carried out using the Bry-Boschan Quarterly (BBQ) algorithm. Chapter 4 presents the empirical findings from the constructed Health Equity iv Index (HEI), including its cyclical trajectories and turning points in comparison with reference indicators such as HALEG, HDI, and GHE. The analysis reveals that the HEI is more responsive to economic and public health shocks than conventional development metrics, highlighting its value in identifying vulnerable populations and delayed equity recovery. Chapter 5 concludes with a summary of insights and outlines several policy implications, particularly the need for targeted, inclusive strategies that address structural and regional disparities. The chapter also discusses limitations of the current index and proposes directions for future research, including the incorporation of more granular or primary data and comparative studies across countries. Ultimately, the study affirms that the HEI serve as the CLI frameworks in this study provide useful and timely tools to inform health equity policy and monitor progress toward more inclusive development. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://scholarhub.unimas.my/handle/123456789/1696 | |
| dc.language.iso | English | |
| dc.publisher | Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Faculty of Economics and Business | |
| dc.subject | Equity, Well-Being, Composite Leading Indicators, Malaysia | |
| dc.title | Tracking our Nation’s Health: Developing a Composite Leading Indicator for Progress in Equity and Well-Being | |
| dc.type | Final Year Project |