CAUSAL MODELS AND SOCIAL INDICATORS: TOWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS MODELS.

To be meaningful social indicators must be components of some social systems model so that changes in the values of these social statistics over time tell us something about the functioning of the social system. A necessary next step in developing social indicators is constructing models involving interrelated sets of social indicators in each major institutional area of society. This paper reports an initial effort to derive a set of social indicators for the area of health care. A structural equation model has been constructed fox the health care system serving the state of New Mexico. The model includes a network that specifies the causal relationships hypothesized as existing among a set of social, demo graphic, and economic variables related to the availability and use of health services and to health status; a set of structural equations that indicate the direct effect of variables in the model on each endogenous variable; a set of reduced form equations that indicate the combined direct and indirect effect of each predetermined variable on each endogenous variable included in the model. The model can be used to provide monitoring information pertaining to the effect of a change in a particular variable on all other variables comprising the health care system. Also it provides explanatory information regarding the differences in the availability of health care services, their use, and the health-status of the population in various counties. Finally, predictions of the effects of alternative health care policies that would affect the supply, the organization of care, or patterns of use of health services can be made based on the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]