Space and Global Health/Equity in Health Care/What Is Health Equity
What is Health Inequity?[edit | edit source]
“Do we not always find the disease of the populace traceable to the defect in the society?” Rudolf Virchow, father of social medicine.
Health inequities are systematic differences in health status or within the distribution of health resources between different population groups, arising from the social conditions within which people are born, grow, live, work and age. As mentioned by WHO these inequities have significant social and economic costs both to individuals and societies.
The term health inequality generically refers to differences in the health of individuals or groups. Any measurable aspect of health that varies across individuals or according to socially relevant groupings can be called a health inequality. Health inequity, or health disparity, is a specific type of health inequality that denotes an unjust difference in health. By one common definition, when health differences are preventable and unnecessary, allowing them to persist is unjust. In this sense, health inequities