PHA-Exchange> BMJ Article: The World Health Report 2000

[Claudio Schuftan]

> The World Health Report 2000's 'health inequalities' approach removes
equity from the agenda for public health monitoring and policy.
>
> Paula Braveman, professor of family and community medicine, University of
California, San Francisco, CA, USA
> Barbara Starfield, university distinguished professor, Johns Hopkins
Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MA, USA
> H Jack Geiger, Logan professor of community medicine, emeritus c., City
University of New York Medical School, Department of Community Health and
Social Medicine, New York, NY, USA

> BMJ September 22, 2001;323 678-681
>
> Available online at: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/678
> <http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/678>
>
> "...... The World Health Organization's World Health Report 2000 deserves
praise for recommending that national health systems be assessed not only by
the average health status of a country's population but also by the extent
to which health varies within the population.  We are concerned, however,
that the report's approach to measuring health inequalities does not
support -- and actually undermines --  efforts to achieve greater equity in
health within nations, according to any meaningful definition of equity.
>
> We believe that the report's measure of health inequalities lacks
practical
> utility in general for guiding national policy because it provides no
> information to guide resource allocation or to target policies.  In
> addition, it does not measure socioeconomic or other social disparities in
health within countries.  It therefore -- when used, as its authors
> implicitly and explicitly recommend, as a substitute for monitoring social
> inequalities in health -- removes consideration of equity and human rights
> from the routine measurement and reporting of health disparities within
> nations......."