Constructing a Spatial Composite Social Health Index and Evaluating it in Iranian Provinces

 Social health index is one of the composite indices that shows the health status of the society using measurable indicators and based on the characteristics of a healthy society. Most of the studies conducted in the field of creating a composite index of social health in Iran have ignored spatial heterogeneity and correlation in terms of the investigated variables. The purpose of this research was to consider the spatial effect in the construction of a composite index of social health and evaluate it in the provinces of Iran.

 In this research, we used 39 social health indicators collected the related to the study from official sources between which was done during 2006-2014. Three methods of normalization with standard normal distribution, comparative method, and ranking method; and three methods of weighting with equal weight, weighting with Principal components analysis (PCA), and weighting with Geographically Weighted Principal Components Analysis (GWPCA) were used. Then, we used the 2011 human development index and Moran's autocorrelation test to compare the nine composite indices. Finally, the best index was chosen, and the results were presented using it.

 The GWPCA-weighted composite index for normalized z-score data with a Moran's test statistic value of 0.334 (p = 0.00026), and a correlation coefficient of 0.81 with the 2011 human development index was chosen as the spatial composite index of social health. Accordingly, Sistan-Baluchistan, Lorestan, and Bushehr provinces were placed as the last three provinces, while Tehran, Alborz, and Yazd provinces were ranked as the top three provinces.

 The study shows the need to consider the spatial effect in the construction of the social health index, considering the inequality of Iran's provinces.