Health Care Inequality

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3.1. INEQUALITY IN HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE UTILIZATION, FINANCIAL PROTECTION AS POLICY CONCERN
“Health” was defined by the World Health Organization in 1948 as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization 1948). In the same year, the right to health was recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a fundamental part of human rights: "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition" (Assembly 1948).
The impacts of establishments of the definitions of health and the right to health on health …show more content…
Since then, ensuring equity in health has become a priority of health policies both at the local and international levels. In 1984, the World Health Organization European Region defined 38 regional targets. The first of these targets was “By the year 2000, the actual differences in health status between countries and between groups within countries should be reduced by at least 25%, by improving the level health of disadvantaged nations and groups” (Whitehead 1992). In 1995, a global initiative on Equity in Health and Health care was tackled by the WHO in Geneva in order to bring the attention of governments and international agencies to the issue of health inequality (Starfield 2006). In 2000, The World Health Report specifically addressed the health system performance and used equity in health as one of the main indicators of the performance (World Health Organization 2000). In 2005, the WHO launched the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). Later in 2008, it released its final report entitled “Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health” (Commission on Social Determinants of Health 2008). The report emphasized that health inequity is a consequence of “a toxic combination of poor social policies …, unfair economic arrangements, and bad politics”. Thus, social determinants of health play a main role in health inequities as they comprise “… structural determinants and conditions of daily life.” (Commission on Social Determinants of Health 2008). WHO identified that the health system has many goals, including improving and protecting health; ensuring fairness in financial protection; improving
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