Well-being is not just a question of the wealth or pleasure that a person has; it is a question of how people manage to live their lives and the ability they have to do certain things that are important to them. This was the argument put forward by Professor Amartya Sen in 1979. In his seminal Tanner Lecture – ‘Equality of What?’, Sen unites economics and philosophy to explore how a person’s well-being might best be measured. It was the first in a series of writings in which he developed his capability approach. This focuses on the actual capability ...

Up until very recently, the international debate on health inequality tended to disregard the issue of specifying equity objectives precisely. This was unfortunate, given the importance of normative analysis for understanding why people care about social justice in the field of health; the extent to which specific types of inequality are compatible with equity; how the concept should be measured; and how rational policies may be formulated and monitored. This article critically appraises six well established approaches to defining equity—egality, ...

To stay alive, Jack Pritchard had to change his life. Triple bypass surgery and medication could help, the heart surgeon told him, but no technical fix could release Pritchard from his own responsibility for changing the habits of a lifetime. He had to stop smoking, improve his diet, get some exercise, and take time to relax, remembering to breathe more deeply each day. Pritchard’s doctor could provide sustaining technical expertise and take supportive action, but only Pritchard could adapt his ingrained habits to improve his long-term health. ...

The paper surveys the economics literature on equity in health care financing and delivery. The focus is, for the most part, on empirical work, especially that involving intemational and temporal comparisons. There is, however, some discussion of the concept and definition of equity. The empirical sections cover the literature on equity in health care financing (progressivity and horizontal equity of health care financing arrangements), equity in health care delivery (horizontal equity in the sense of treating persons in equal need similarly), ...

Those concerned with poverty and health have sometimes viewed equity and human rights as abstract concepts with little practical application, and links between health, equity and human rights have not been examined systematically. Examination of the concepts of poverty, equity, and human rights in relation to health and to each other demonstrates that they are closely linked conceptually and operationally and that each provides valuable, unique guidance for health institutions’ work. Equity and human rights perspectives can contribute concretely ...

Public health policy in older industrialized societies is being reconfigured to improve population health and to address inequalities in the social distribution of health. The concept of social determinants is central to these policies, with tackling the social influences on health seen as a way to reduce health inequalities. But the social factors promoting and undermining the health of individuals and populations should not be confused with the social processes underlying their unequal distribution. This distinction is important because, despite ...

The gross inequalities in health that we see within and between countries present a challenge to the world. That there should be a spread of life expectancy of 48 years among countries and 20 years or more within countries is not inevitable. A burgeoning volume of research identifies social factors at the root of much of these inequalities in health. Social determinants are relevant to communicable and non-communicable disease alike. Health status, therefore, should be of concern to policy makers in every sector, not solely those involved in ...