Health Equity: The Past, Now, And Future
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Health Equity: The Past, Now, And Future

The Concept of Health Equity Is Not A Novel Vision, But To Access One, We Must Embrace A Novel Mission!

Illumination initially published this article on Medium!

For the past couple of centuries, since the recognition of population health and public health establishment in the 1900s, the concept of "health equity" has turned out to be ideal. Social medicine and the subject of social critics have long recognized the role of social class inequalities in offsetting health inequities.

The World Health Organization (WHO) constitution further endorsed the concept of health equity by emphasizing the highest pinnacle of health and wellness to everyone irrespective of race, religion, political belief, economic, or social condition".

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations also assumes:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family” and that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”

Many organizations, profit, non-profit, and government or non-governmental organizations, have evolved, adopting similar visions and missions as the United Nations and WHO on health equity. One can account for numerous legislations published over the last 30 years by "Think Cultural Health ."

The most recent legislation one can ratify is the "Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities," which enforces Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act in the United States. The section forbids prejudice based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in particular health programs and activities.

Indeed, reaching health equity requires every individual to have the prospect of attaining their full health potential. And no one should be detriment from reaching their full potential to stay healthy. Such unfavorable circumstances can be any factor in any shape or form.

Despite Continuing Endeavor To Achieve Health Equity, We Are Still At The Beginning Of The Line.

It is not a remote reality that health equity has always been the subject of moral rhetoric and is often politically adorned through collective conscience. The healthcare leaders are on track, yet with various paces, mobilizing towards health equity . But hardly ever has the notion of health equity grabbed the attention of the individualistic and the point of view of personal liberty. That is merely because we still have a long way to go before we can embrace the true definition of health equity . Furthermore, we must comprehend the difference between "health equity" and "health equality." The common grounds for both concepts are more important than their difference. That eliminates all the barriers and creates options for every individual irrespective of location, distance, socioeconomic status, and psychological and physical limitations.

Today we are unable to guarantee exactly the same type of healthcare to everyone but we can extend every citizen the same options, yet still we fail to do that!

We continually discuss passing legislation that guarantees all races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes the same options. But we never discuss making an infrastructural reform that will allow every individual to search, find, realize and exchange any medical service and product anywhere and at any distance. In this system, individuals control and maintain ownership of their operations and personal information.

But unfortunately, we are still blindsided by rhetorics that place our faith in the utter mercy of policymakers and bureaucrats. That is what we are facing today.

Undoubtedly, one must eliminate discrimination before reaching health equity or even health equality. However, we can never get that milestone by passing policy over policy without healthcare logistics infrastructural reform.

Agencies such as the National Health Council (NHC) continually endorse improvement in Access, Affordability, and Quality healthcare as part of its advocacy for health equity. It supports equitable access to affordable and comprehensive health coverage , access to care policy advice, medical innovation policy guidance, and recommendations on addressing social determinants of health .

Indeed, the healthcare system, leaders of the healthcare domain, and the communities need to partner up in the journey toward achieving health equity. These include:

  1. Supporting community organizations around critical social determinants of health
  2. Supporting community capacity building
  3. Supporting education, compliance, and enforcement

But all of these tasks can hardly succeed without the proper logistic infrastructure.

Recently, healthcare professionals have realized the benefits of infrastructures such as telehealth systems on health inequities. However, that is just one piece of the puzzle.

A simple strategy for achieving health equity mandates collecting data and stratification to identify inequities , aid set priorities, and drive improvement activities in clinical process performance, outcomes, patient experience, and public health. The latter, nevertheless, needs individual participation and permission.

Bolstering the science and health equity mission is among the top future priorities in the public health domain. And that science is the foundation for industry disruptors that can create a logistic system that is hybrid, decentralized, interoperable, and transparent. It offers a collaborative space for all healthcare stakeholders to navigate the healthcare domain independently, physically, and in virtual space in tandem with one another, whichever they choose. Within the system, partakers could search, find, realize, share, and exchange every medical service or product without constraint.

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