Health equity is a fundamental goal of health services and other related institutions. An account of health equity due to Whitehead (1990), links it to social justice and rights: “the absence of socially unjust or unfair health disparities.” This is a moralised account of health equity that imposes obligations on a society to confront and tackle health inequity.

In this presentation, Associate Professor Neil Pickering takes up this moralised approach to health equity and explores it. In particular he uses a thought experiment in which he asks about (a) the difference between health inequalities and health inequities, and (b) the role and scope of rights claims to the highest level of attainable health (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (IC ESCR) Article 12).