Health Inequality: Morality and Measurement
294 pp, $55
Toronto, ON, Canada, University of Toronto Press, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-8020-9244-1
- Timothy Ferris, MD, MPH, ReviewerMassachusetts General Physicians OrganizationDepartments of Medicine and PediatricsHarvard Medical SchoolBoston, Massachusetts tferris@partners.org;
- Sarah Johnson, ReviewerMassachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health PolicyBoston
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- ETHICS, MEDICAL
- HEALTHCARE DISPARITIES
Is the health of US citizens unequal? If it is, is the inequality increasing? Among the various forms of inequality, health inequality seems particularly pernicious. Jefferson dropped the term “health” from Locke's original formulation when he penned the most famous phrase in the US Declaration of Independence, but health is either explicit or implicit in most formulations of the inalienable rights of man.1 Some studies suggest that the United States does have health inequalities and further that these inequalities may be increasing,2,3,4 but the evidence is not uniform.5,6 Where to begin when trying to unravel this important topic?
First of all, while health inequality has moral and political implications, measurement of health inequality has philosophical as well as statistical aspects. Health inequality is a moral problem, because health is determined in part by things that can be controlled (like health care), …
