Examining the role of amenable mortality as an indicator of health system effectiveness.

A recent paper in this journal raised questions as to the reliability, sensitivity and validity of amenable mortality as an indicator of health system effectiveness. In this commentary, we revisit the evidence that was put forward, and suggest that there are several good reasons for assessing health system effectiveness on the basis of amenable mortality. moreover, provided multiple years of data are used to increase the precision of measurement of amenable mortality rates in very small regions, this indicator of health system effectiveness can be considered a valuable tool for research and performance measurement.