title: Equity - some theory and its policy implications.
abstract: This essay seeks to characterise the essential features of an equitable health care system in terms of the classical Aristotelian concepts of horizontal and vertical equity, the common (but ill-defined) language of "need" and the economic notion of cost-effectiveness as a prelude to identifying some of the more important issues of value that policy-makers will have to decide for themselves; the characteristics of health (and what determines it) that can cause policy to be ineffective (or have undesired consequences); the information base that is required to support a policy directed at securing greater equity, and the kinds of research (theoretical and empirical) that are needed to underpin such a policy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics & related Subjects, University of York, Heslington.
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Culyer
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards*; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000592:standards*; D006291:Health Policy; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D012935:Social Justice; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D006113:United Kingdom