Validity and responsiveness of the Core Outcome Measures Index (COMI) for the neck

Patient-orientated outcome questionnaires are essential to evaluate treatment success. To compare different treatments, hospitals, and surgeons, standardised questionnaires are required. The present study examined the validity and responsiveness of the Core Outcome Measurement Index for neck pain (COMI-neck), a short, multidimensional outcome instrument.

A different perspective on poverty in Lao PDR: Multidimensional poverty in Lao PDR for the years 2002/2003 and 2007/2008

This paper presents an indicator for measuring multidimensional poverty in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic applying the Alkire–Foster methodology to the Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2002/2003 and 2007/2008. We calculated a multidimensional poverty index (MPI) that includes three dimensions: education, health, and standard of living. Making use of the MPI’s decomposability, we analyse how much each of the different dimensions and its respective indicators contribute to the overall MPI. We find a marked reduction in the multidimensional poverty headcount ratio over the study period, regardless of how the indicators are weighted or how the deprivation and poverty cut-offs are set. This reduction is based on improvements regarding all indicators except cooking fuel and nutrition. We observe no significant reduction in the intensity of poverty, however; there are wide disparities between the country’s regions and between urban and rural areas. The proportion of poor people in rural areas is more than twice as high as that in urban areas. By complementing the traditional income-based poverty measure, we hope to provide useful information that can support knowledge-based decision-making for poverty alleviation.

Differences Between Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty in the Lao PDR: Implications for Targeting of Poverty Reduction Policies and Interventions

This study compares monetary and multidimensional poverty measures for the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Using household data of 2007/2008, we compare the empirical outcomes of the country’s current official monetary poverty measure with those of a multidimensional poverty measure. We analyze which population subgroups are identified as poor by both measures and thus belong to the category of the poorest of the poor; and we look at which subgroups are identified as poor by only one of the measures and belong either to the category of the income-poor (identified as poor only by the monetary measure) or to that of the overlooked poor (identified as poor only by the multidimensional poverty measure). Furthermore, we examined drivers of these differences using a multinomial regression model and found that monetary poverty does not capture the multiple deprivations of ethnic minorities, who are only identified as poor when using a multidimensional poverty measure. We conclude that complementing the monetary poverty measure with a multidimensional poverty index would enable more effective targeting of poverty reduction efforts.