A reflection on the common term ‘indicator’
by Hannah Yu-Pearson
January 2026
“Collective agency is not only the many people that share this desire and capacity to act, it is the practices, examples, histories, skills and tools that are held between them too. Collective agency makes most of what is alive and present, even if hidden, amidst us all.”
An indicator is a sign that shows the existence, level, condition or trend of something. An indicator often refers to a summary or observable trait that is used to gauge a more complex process or pattern. Anthropologist Sally Engle Merry writes how indicators tend to ignore individual specificity and context in favour of superficial but standardised knowledge (source). The meaning of indicators lies in their significance as communication tools (source).
A key intention behind using indicators is to present information that is readily interpretable and actionable. An inherent characteristic of an indicator is its simplification of reality. As humans we have always found ways to observe the signs that indicate the presence or movement of something and simplify it. Crucially, when we use indicators knowingly as reductions of complex contexts, and critically engage with their value construct, purpose and use, we gain more from their role as communication tools.
WHY TALK ABOUT INDICATORS?
The term indicator often gets misused. This reflection on indicators was actually sparked from an internal team conversation in a coworking session where what I meant to be naming a contributing factor of ill health, I called an indicator. An easy mistake, especially where there are multiple and complex relationships, determinants and measurements at play. But it’s also a risky mistake to make, because when you use certain terminology to understand a problem in order to build a solution, a mistaken word will take you down a different path, or totally obscure the phenomena that you are trying to observe.
Here’s a very simplified example from that conversation: the presence of black mould in a flat is a contributing factor of ill health, not necessarily an indicator of ill health for the person who lives there. The black mould indicates the lack of ventilation in a space, which contributes to poor health. The health of the inhabitants would be indicated by their own physiological signs and symptoms. Of course there is a relationship between them, but conflating and confusing what we measure and to what end masks the pathways that can be taken in our strategy to change an outcome.
LIMITATIONS OF INDICATORS
Indicators are not value-neutral tools but are embedded within a broader socio-political context. The connotation of an indicator value (e.g., ‘high’ or ‘low’ pollution) is influenced by underlying value systems and what these systems stand for. A poorly chosen indicator can be worse than no data, providing false reassurance or incorrectly identifying a problem. This often happens with correlation vs. causation, an indicator might correlate with a trend but not necessarily reflect its true cause. Read more about the flawed Broken Window Theory here.
The benefits of indicators are especially questionable when selected before the right question has been posed or used to the exclusion of other sources of information (source).
What happens when you cannot contextualise the indicator, because the indicator itself is being used in the wrong context, or to answer the wrong question? Statistical measures have embedded theories and values that shape apparently objective information and influence decisions. From Measuring the World:
Indicators submerge local particularities and idiosyncrasies into universal categories, thus generating knowledge that is standardized and comparable across nations and regions…The deployment of statistical measures tends to replace political debate with technical expertise.
What’s highlighted in this paper is how indicators have been transplanted across disciplines and used to flatten nuance, specificity and complexity into a technical realm that misrepresents itself as objective.
WHAT WE MISS WHEN WE MISUSE AN INDICATOR
The most common misuse of the term indicator that shows up in our field of work is the way PM2.5 is used as a health indicator, rather than what it is - an indicator of particulate matter in the air. People are increasingly turning to measure PM2.5 in campaigns for their health, whilst not measuring the signs and symptoms they are exhibiting in their own bodies as the indicators of the impact of air pollution on their health.
The designation of certain issues as ‘indicators’ and others as ‘non-indicators’ reflects underlying value judgments and political priorities. The delineation of what gets measured and monitored has implications for policy and action. Indicator selection processes can be influenced by vested interests, potentially marginalising certain concerns or perspectives (source). In this case, being wedded to PM2.5 as a health indicator instead of the signs and symptoms of our own bodies reflects air pollution as a disembodied, technically measured occurrence without impact, responsibility or accountability. The pathway created from measuring PM2.5 does not easily take us to understanding the health impacts of air pollution that is manifest in the countless signs and indicators in our own bodies. Furthermore, the measurement of PM2.5 traps us into seeking ‘safe levels’ of particulate matter, despite the WHO declaring there to be no safe level (source).
As I mentioned in the start, if indicators are a communication tool, what is being communicated, what values are being implicitly made through this ‘technical’ measurement, and where does that lead us?
For more reading on the questionable history and use of indicators, you can read about measurement and the social and economic origins of genetic determinism here and the sociology of indicators here.
Share with us your experiences, uses and misuses of the term indicator.
Hannah will continue to share notes on her journey as a director of Centric Lab weaving Ecological Justice throughout the Lab’s work. At the moment Hannah is currently working on the Introduction to Ecological Health and Community Health Impact Assessment learning programmes and steering the Polluters Playbook for Air is Kin. You can reach Hannah via email: hannah at thecentriclab dot com