دورية أكاديمية

The Normative Significance of Social Determinants of Health

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: The Normative Significance of Social Determinants of Health
المؤلفون: Schramme, Thomas
المصدر: Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics; Núm. 9 (2018): Issue 9; p. 155-165
Publication Status: published
بيانات النشر: Universitat Ramon Llull, 2018.
سنة النشر: 2018
مصطلحات موضوعية: public health, social determinants of health, concept of health, health inequalities, noncomparative justice
الوصف: In this paper I critically discuss the normative significance of so-called social determinants of health and their use in public health policy. I will highlight certain possible and real misperceptions that are common in public health research and public health policy. After introducing the concept of the social determinants of health, the first issue I discuss concerns the confusion surrounding the notion of health in public health. Public health is mainly concerned with health dispositions or risks. This is different from a concern for people being unhealthy in the sense of suffering from a disease. The difference is important for the notion of health inequalities as well. In order to deem some people less healthy than others, a gradual concept of health is needed. Once the two concepts of health are confused, it is more difficult to acknowledge normative differences between being unhealthy and being less healthy. I submit that public health policies tend to exploit the common attitude towards diseases, namely that they ought to be treated and that they establish claims of justice. It is then another step of public health practitioners to campaign against social conditions that lead to certain health inequalities, which are deemed unjust. In other words, public health allows a normative argument, via the value of health, against specific social conditions. I reject this approach and allow only an indirect role for inequalities of health dispositions in an account of social justice. They might be regarded as symptoms of social ills, but they are not, according to my mind, as such unjust. Injustice in social conditions needs to be established in its own right, not mainly via its impact on health dispositions in specific populations. In the final section I hint towards an alternative, a noncomparative theory of social justice, which aims at enabling citizens to make healthy choices, but is not per se interested in comparative differences between people.
نوع الوثيقة: article
وصف الملف: application/pdf
اللغة: English
تدمد: 2229-578X
2013-8393
Relation: https://www.raco.cat/index.php/rljae/article/view/338154/429025
URL الوصول: https://www.raco.cat/index.php/rljae/article/view/338154
حقوق: El Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics es publica en accés obert 6 mesos després de la publicació en paper (Editorial Herder). El Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics es publica en accés obert sota la llicència Creative Commons Reconeixement-NoComercial-CompartirIgual (by-nc-sa): No es permet un ús comercial de l’obra original ni de les possibles obres derivades, la distribució de les quals s’ha de fer amb una llicència igual a la que regula l’obra original.© Càtedra Ethos - URL i Herder.
رقم الأكسشن: edsrac.338154
قاعدة البيانات: RACO (Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert)