The Equity Gauge: Concepts, Principles, and Guidelines

The Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA)
South Africa

The purpose of this document is to describe the concept and key principles of an Equity Gauge, and to provide guidelines for putting the concept and principles into action. GEGA’s ultimate goal in disseminating the document is to contribute to the creation of an effective global alliance of Equity Gauges bound by shared principles and common approaches. Concern about equity in health is not new. International health and development agencies, researchers, and activists have been pointing to inequities in health between different countries, between rich and poor people, between racial/ethnic groups, and between men and women, for many years. Equity was one of the key principles of the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration on Health for All. However, despite evidence of wide and sometimes widening disparities between and within countries on every continent, few countries routinely monitor equity in health, health care, the underlying determinants of health, or the social consequences of illness. Equity is an urgent public health issue today. An Equity Gauge places health equity squarely within a larger framework of social justice. While some health inequalities are inevitable and acceptable (for example, elderly people generally have poorer health than young adults), many health inequalities are avoidable and unjust (for example, lower rates of immunization coverage among girls than among boys, or higher mortality rates among some racial/ethnic groups compared to others). Equity Gauges are concerned with health-related inequalities that are unfair.

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