SummaryHealth inequalities are the unfair and avoidable differences in people's health between different social groups. These inequalities have a huge influence on people's lives, particularly those who live at the poorer end of the socio-economic spectrum, as they result in prolonged ill health and shorter lives. Most studies estimate health inequalities for a single disease, but this will give an incomplete picture of the overall inequality in population health. Here we propose a novel multivariate spatiotemporal model for quantifying health inequalities in Scotland across multiple diseases, which will enable us to understand better how these inequalities vary across disease and have changed over time. In developing this model we are interested in estimating health inequalities between Scotland's 14 regional health boards, who are responsible for the protection and improvement of their population's health. The methodology is applied to hospital admissions data for cerebrovascular disease, coronary heart disease and respiratory disease, which are three of the leading causes of death, from 2003 to 2012 across Scotland.

中文翻译：

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使用多元时空模型估计苏格兰健康不平等性质的变化

概括健康不平等是指不同社会群体之间人们的健康状况存在不公平且可以避免的差异。这些不平等对人们的生活产生巨大影响，特别是那些生活在社会经济阶层较贫困一端的人们，因为它们导致长期健康不佳和寿命缩短。大多数研究都估计单一疾病的健康不平等，但这无法完整地反映人口健康的总体不平等情况。在这里，我们提出了一种新颖的多元时空模型，用于量化苏格兰多种疾病的健康不平等，这将使我们能够更好地了解这些不平等如何随疾病的变化以及随着时间的推移而变化。在开发这个模型时，我们有兴趣估计苏​​格兰 14 个地区卫生委员会之间的健康不平等，这些委员会负责保护和改善其人口的健康。该方法适用于 2003 年至 2012 年苏格兰各地脑血管疾病、冠心病和呼吸系统疾病（这三大死亡原因）的入院数据。