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15

The need to build on recent progress

Chapter 1: The Index of Cancer Preparedness

Measuring cancer preparedness

This study follows The Economist Intelligence

Unit’s publication Cancer preparedness

around the world: National readiness for a

global epidemic released early in 2019, which

evaluated 28 countries around the world.^29

With the same methodology, this study

focuses on 12 Latin American countries:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,

Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama,

Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

The Index of Cancer Preparedness (ICP)

measures how ready healthcare systems

are for the challenge of cancer and seeks

to answer this question: how well prepared

are countries to achieve major reductions

in premature deaths from cancer, increase

cancer survival rates, and improve the quality

of life for cancer patients and survivors?

The ICP was developed following a literature

review and an expert panel meeting that

guided the selection of desirable indicators of

cancer preparedness. The index explores the

issue of cancer preparedness through three

broad domains:

1. Policy and planning: focusing on levers that
   are mostly in the hands of policymakers.


2. Care delivery: looking at the delivery of
   cancer-specific activities within health
   systems themselves.


3. Health systems and governance:
   acknowledging that cancer cannot be
   defeated by cancer-focused activities alone.

The three domains comprise 13 sub-domains

and 45 indicators. These range from the

existence of policies to encourage physical

activity to the extent of palliative care

provision in the public health system. Other

indicators look at issues as various as the

size of the healthcare workforce and the

prevalence of corruption.

Indicators for each country were scored out

of 100 following standard guidelines. Indicator

scores were then aggregated using weighted

averages into sub-domain scores, which were

finally computed into an overall score. The

ICP measurements rely on evidence collected

by The Economist Intelligence Unit and from

data obtained from respected international

databases.^30

(^29) The Economist Intelligence Unit, Cancer preparedness around the world: National readiness for a global epidemic, 2018, https://worldcancerinitiative.
economist.com/pdf/Cancer_preparedness_around_the_world.pdf
(^30) For a detailed description of the methodology and information on specific indicators, scoring and weighting, see The Economist Intelligence Unit,
Index of Cancer Preparedness, Methodology report, http://worldcancerinitiative.economist.com/index-of-cancerpreparedness/ICPMethodology.pdf.