Defending Dignity A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions on Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 3. In the past month, has a member of your household suffered from any form of disease caused by pathogenic microorganisms? Remove the jargon; use plain language. 4. The use of pesticides by factories near the Ariel Settlement has not impacted on members of my Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree. household’s health. The question uses a double negative. Rephrase as “has” impacted. Chapter 8: Analysing data: A short introduction to working with spreadsheets 1. How much did your country spend on health per capita in the most recent year for which you have data? How does this compare to neighbouring countries? To calculate health spending per capita, first calculate how much money is spent on health. The formula for this is: GDP*(health spending/100). Remember, to use the formula in Excel, click on the relevant cells for GDP and health spending. Next, divide this amount by the population. Make sure you are using data from the same year for each of these calculations. 2. What is the mean value of per capita health expenditure across countries in your region in the most recent year for which you have data? How does your country compare to the average? To calculate the mean value, select the data you are interested in (i.e. the results from question one) and use the formula =AVERAGE. Is your country high or lower than this? 3. Is the mean a good estimate of what is normal across countries in your region? What is the minimum value, what is the maximum value? Consider whether a different measure of the average may be more appropriate. To find the minimum and maximum values, sort the data from smallest to largest, or use the formulae =MIN and =MAX. If the minimum or maximum value is particularly low or high, it might skew the average. If that is the case, the median may be a better way of calculating the average. To do this, use the formula =MEDIAN. 4. What has been the annual percentage change in per capita health expenditure? Tip: to calculate the percentage change, first subtract the old value from the new value. Then divide that change by the old value. Then multiply by 100. For example, say health expenditure increased from USD 5 billion to USD 7 billion in one year. This is a USD 2 billion increase. Divide this by the old value (USD 5 billion) and you get: 2/5=0.4, which is 40% when converted into a percentage. 5. What is the relationship between per capita health expenditure and life expectancy? What can be inferred from this information? Do countries that spend more on health per capita have a higher life expectancy? Tip: Visualizing this data in a graph will help you to see the correlations more clearly. Chapter 15 introduces data visualization in more detail. Chapter 10: Analysing public budgets 1. Find your country’s most recent enacted budget. Calculate the amount spent on health and education as a ratio of the overall budget. The answer to this question will be country-specific. Tip: To calculate government health spending as a ratio of the overall budget, simply divide the amount budgeted to health by the total budgeted amount. 172