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BHEW (Bangladesh Health Equity Watch) is a Bangaldeshi initiative established to determine whether the health situation in the country is improving and if those improvements are equitable. This report produced by BRAC gives an account of its current findings. Equity in health is defined as 'the absence of systematic and potentially redemiable differences in one or more aspects of health across populations or population subgroups defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically'. For example, while child mortality in Bangladesh has decreased, it is not known whether the decline has been equal for all groups within the population, such as the difficult areas to reach usually inhabited by ethnic minorities. In addition to child mortality, the report also focuses on nutritional status of the population including young children, and utilisation and accessiblity of the health care services. The report finds that the health of the disadvantaged groups has not much improved since independence. The information given is targeted at policy makers and programme implementers
