Well if you are at the bottom of the social heap, striving to find enough money to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head…not much.
But if you want to understand how a government or a researcher or development worker thinks and works to improve your lot (& public health in general), then you need to know the difference.
So here goes:
Health inequality and health disparity are used interchangeably, depending on the country. AS an English speaker, there is a nuanced difference between the term inequality and disparity. Inequality to me comes with an ethical link behind it whereas disparity implies there’s just a difference.
But for researchers and policymakers, there is no difference between health inequality and health disparity. So here is their definition: differences in health between populations (defined by country or regions) and between groups based on gender or socio-economic status or ethnicity. Having established these differences through evidence (and there’s lots), its up to you or your government to decide if the difference is worth addressing.[ In our database Global Health, records using either term are found but are all indexed with & will be retrieved consistently using “health inequalities”]
Whereas health equity is understood by all in the field that these differences in health are immoral, that they are linked to social or economic status, “the rich live 7 years longer than the poor” in the UK, the average life expectancy of a woman in Swaziland is just over 1/2 that of her equivalent in Sweden (48 vs 84 years): it comes with a value judgement that “everyone is entitled to a healthy life” unless demonstrated otherwise…and that otherwise would have to be environmental or genetic effects which could not be changed. And at that point you’d move into the area of Quality of Life, which is outside the subject of this blog.
Indeed it has been suggested that it is a human right to expect a healthy life (for however long that might be);
“Article 25 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
The implications of this for international law &, clearly, the practicalities are still being worked out…
Two conferences in November (EUPHA 10 ( Amsterdam) and APHA 2010 (Denver) are addressing health inequality and health equity (the latter under the theme of "social justice").
Related News & Blogs
Universal health coverage gains momentum in 2016
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) day, December 12th, focusses on achieving Health for All by expanding UHC, a key SDG, to low and middle-income countries and ensuring that it also reaches the poorest in wealthy countries. Everyone should have access to basic health services without suffering financial hardship. The G7 Ise-shima meeting linked it to achieving better health systems and the global health security agenda. WE discuss what LMIC provide as basic health services and what NGOs and the public health community would like to further include (neglected tropical diseases and provision for refugees and migrant workers in host countries).
9 December 2016