This section provides a brief summary of the main ways in which health in-equalities are conceptualized, particularly in terms of the indicators used to stratify health. It is by no means a comprehensive account but rather considers the ways in which researchers focusing on the UK have tended to conceptualize health inequalities over the past 30 years and some of the key chalenges to these approaches (critiques which are developed later in this book).

This report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation aims to stimulate discussion and promote greater consensus about the meaning of health equity and the implications of acting on it. The goal of the report is to identify essential elements to guide effective action rather than to encourage all practitioners to use the same words to define health equity. The report notes that definitions can matter and that, in the case of health equity, clarity is important, especially given that working towards equity is a struggle that must engage diverse ...

This paper develops the idea of health justice as a plural conception. It draws on the literature on justice from philosophy and economics, and investigates its application and reach in the space of health. Several distinctions are invoked in identifying and contrasting different facets of health justice and injustice. These include active versus passive injustice; process fairness versus substantive justice; comparative versus noncomparative justice; compensatory and distributive justice. Within distributive justice, the health implications of ...