Health Equity vs Health Equality

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines Health Equity as the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health."

To achieve Health Equity, efforts from all of us is required, we need to be able to:

• Address historical and current injustice such as racism

• Economic and social obstacle to health and health care such as access to high quality health care

• Eliminate preventable Health Disparities such as infant mortality

Each one of us is a unique person with different needs in order to achieve our highest level of health. For example, access to high quality healthcare is not accessible or affordable for certain racial and ethnic populations, communities, across the nation and globally, thereby leading to Health Disparities.

Some groups need more resources than others to achieve Health Equity. For example, this image demonstrates a healthcare professional providing medical services near the child's environment because the mom and child is unable to travel to the town where the health clinic is located.

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Health Equality is when each of us, regardless of race, education level, ability to be mobile, access to healthcare, ability to afford healthcare, is treated the same, regardless of our individual needs or differences.

Some of us require financial assistance to afford the medications we need or require unique services or equipment based on developmental abilities. An example of Health Equity is when the provision of services matches an individual's needs as depicted in this image below. A prosthesis allows this individual to ride a bicycle and engage physical activity to help with his overall health.

Reference:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/healthequity/index.html