The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has published a new study published in The Lancet that finds significant disparities in well-being among racial and ethnic groups, and across sex and age groups. In the first analysis of its kind, the Human Development Index (HDI) was adapted to examine trends and inequities at the individual rather than the group level from 2008 to 2021. Published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the HDI is an indicator of well-being composed of lifespan, education, and income and a statistical measurement of a country's average achievements in these three areas.
IHME's adaptation of HDI used data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to estimate years of education and household spending, combined with life expectancy estimates based on death records, to estimate expected lifespan. Significant disparities in HDI by race and ethnicity and by sex. Although average HDI increased gradually from 2008 to 2019 for all demographic groups-;with a decline in 2020 due to decreases in lifespan-;and people of every race and ethnicity and sex can be found at both highest and lowest HDI segments, disparities in HDI were observed by race and ethnicity and by sex.
American Indian and Alaska Native males and females, Black males, and Latino males are most likely to experience the lowest levels of well-being in the nation, while Asian Americans and White females are most likely to experience the highest levels of well-being. Among Ame.
