Health equity
Say it: HELTH EK-wih-tee
Health equity means every person has a fair chance to be as healthy as possible, with no avoidable, unjust differences in health between social groups.
Also: equity in health
Definition
What is health equity?
Health equity is the goal that every person can achieve the best possible health and well-being, whatever their income, race or ethnicity, sex, gender, disability, location or other social position. Its opposite, a health inequity, is a difference in health between groups that is avoidable, unfair and open to remedy, such as higher infant death rates in poorer neighborhoods. Not every difference is an inequity: older people have more heart disease than young people largely for biological reasons.
Equity is not the same as equality. Treating everyone identically can leave gaps in place, so working toward equity often means giving more support to groups that face greater obstacles. Most health gaps between groups are shaped by the social determinants of health, the circumstances of people's birth, upbringing, housing, work and aging, and by structural forces such as laws, discrimination and the way money and power are shared.
Public health agencies, including the World Health Organization and the CDC, treat health equity as a central aim. Progress is tracked by breaking health data down by income, education, sex, ethnicity and place so that gaps become visible, and by acting both within health care, on access and quality, and beyond it, on education, housing and employment.
Word parts
Where does the term “health equity” come from?
- equ-
- equal, fair (aequitas: fairness)Latin aequus
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Terms that go with it
- Social determinants of healthSocial determinants of health are the nonmedical factors, such as income, education, housing and work, that shape a person's health throughout life.
- Public healthPublic health is the science and practice of preventing disease and injury and promoting health across whole communities rather than individual patients.
- Life expectancyLife expectancy is the average number of further years people of a given age would live if current death rates at each age stayed the same.
- MorbidityMorbidity is the state of having a disease, injury or disability, and also the amount of illness in a population, measured by incidence and prevalence.
- EpidemiologyEpidemiology is the study of how often diseases and other health events occur in populations, what causes them and how they can be controlled.
- Noncommunicable diseaseA noncommunicable disease is a long-lasting illness, such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes, that does not pass from one person to another.
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Written for biofideX in plain words, after checking these references:
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