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A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement
BACKGROUND: In the World Health Report 2000, the World Health Organization made the controversial choice to measure inequality across individuals rather than across groups, the standard in the field. This choice has been widely discussed and criticized. DISCUSSION: We look at the three questions: (1...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2002
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC119370/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12234389 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-1-2 |
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author | Asada, Yukiko Hedemann, Thomas |
author_facet | Asada, Yukiko Hedemann, Thomas |
author_sort | Asada, Yukiko |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: In the World Health Report 2000, the World Health Organization made the controversial choice to measure inequality across individuals rather than across groups, the standard in the field. This choice has been widely discussed and criticized. DISCUSSION: We look at the three questions: (1) is the World Health Organization's health inequality measure value-free as it claims? (2) if it is not, what is the normative position implied by its approach when measuring health inequality? and (3) is the individual approach a logically consistent methodological choice for that normative position? SUMMARY: We argue that the World Health Organization's health inequality measure is not value-free. If it was, the health inequality information that the measurement collected could not reasonably be included in its ranking of how well national health systems performed. The World Health Organization's normative position can be interpreted as a quite expansive view of justice, in which health distributions that have causes amenable to human intervention are considered to be matters of justice. Our conclusion is that if the World Health Organization's health inequality measure is to be interpreted meaningfully in a policy context, its conceptual underpinning must be re-evaluated. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-119370 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2002 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-1193702002-09-10 A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement Asada, Yukiko Hedemann, Thomas Int J Equity Health Commentary BACKGROUND: In the World Health Report 2000, the World Health Organization made the controversial choice to measure inequality across individuals rather than across groups, the standard in the field. This choice has been widely discussed and criticized. DISCUSSION: We look at the three questions: (1) is the World Health Organization's health inequality measure value-free as it claims? (2) if it is not, what is the normative position implied by its approach when measuring health inequality? and (3) is the individual approach a logically consistent methodological choice for that normative position? SUMMARY: We argue that the World Health Organization's health inequality measure is not value-free. If it was, the health inequality information that the measurement collected could not reasonably be included in its ranking of how well national health systems performed. The World Health Organization's normative position can be interpreted as a quite expansive view of justice, in which health distributions that have causes amenable to human intervention are considered to be matters of justice. Our conclusion is that if the World Health Organization's health inequality measure is to be interpreted meaningfully in a policy context, its conceptual underpinning must be re-evaluated. BioMed Central 2002-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC119370/ /pubmed/12234389 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-1-2 Text en Copyright © 2002 Asada and Hedemann; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL. |
spellingShingle | Commentary Asada, Yukiko Hedemann, Thomas A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title | A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title_full | A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title_fullStr | A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title_full_unstemmed | A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title_short | A Problem with the Individual Approach in the WHO Health Inequality Measurement |
title_sort | problem with the individual approach in the who health inequality measurement |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC119370/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12234389 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-1-2 |
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