This chapter gives the empirical background to the analysis in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. It first reviews measurement issues with respect to implementing the human development model of Chapter 2. There could be different ways to put the human development model into practice depending on the objective of the exercise and the context. This chapter discusses some ways to operationalize the model and explains the health and wellbeing deprivation measures that are adopted in the rest of this book. It describes the data under use (Living Standards Measurement Study) and the demographic, socioeconomic, and policy contexts for the countries covered in the analysis: Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.