ABSTRACT
This chapter offers type of conceptual scheme for classifying the range of different factors influencing health status, and assessing their relative importance. The dimensions of the cube were chosen to organize data on heterogeneities in population health, in order to use them more effectively as clues to the determinants of health status at the individual level. The life cycle is fundamental to the study of heterogeneities in population health status because it is the basis of biological change in individuals as they age. Observed heterogeneities in health status can arise through several different causal pathways or mechanisms operating across different population partitions and stages of the life cycle. The sources of heterogeneity in health status would then be contemporaneous with the observed heterogeneities themselves. A population can be partitioned according to any number of different characteristics. But the interesting partitions are those which consistently demonstrate clear heterogeneity of health status across their subgroups in many diverse settings.
