10 best resources on ... health equity

Abstract

An astute bureaucratic pundit named Rufus Miles once observed that ‘where you stand depends on where you sit’ (Miles 1978). This ‘Miles Law’ deserves to be kept centrally in mind when considering not only traditional bureaucratic behaviour, but also health equity; for one's judgment about what's ‘best’ in the health equity area is unavoidably shaped by his/her institutional experience, background and interests.Rather than challenge such an unfortunately well-established reality, better for an author to admit at the outset just where (s)he has sat. This author must accordingly confess to having long sat at operationally-oriented external assistance agencies rather than at academic institutions. The consequence has been a preference for pieces that, in the tradition of this journal, can help shape health policy and planning; rather than for the many valuable but more abstract or technical readings on health equity that deal with basic concepts or advanced statistics. It further reflects the technocratic outlook, and orientation toward the economic dimensions of equity that comes from having long been associated with one particular institution, the World Bank; rather than the more explicitly ethical outlook of someone sitting at, say, an activist non-governmental organization more obviously concerned with social justice.