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Health Inequalities and Why They Matter

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Abstract

Health inequalities are of concern both becausestudying them may help one learn how to improvehealth and because health inequalities may beunjust. This paper argues that attending tothese reasons why health inequalities may beimportant undercuts the claims of researchersat the World Health Organization in favor offocusing on individual health variation ratherthan on social group health differences. Inequalities in individual health are of littleinterest unless one goes on to study how theyare related to other factors.

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Hausman, D.M., Asada, Y. & Hedemann, T. Health Inequalities and Why They Matter. Health Care Analysis 10, 177–191 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016502119050

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