4. Improve coordination between housing and health care – Housing conditions and housing-based initiatives have a strong relationship with health, leading to many proposals for coordinating housing with other services and using housing as a hub for support services.
Why is it important that the healthcare field prioritizes equity rather than equality?
Equality vs Equity in Healthcare: Both Are Important Equality and equity are not synonyms. Equality involves considering individuals equally regardless of their circumstances, while equity involves adjusting the way individuals are considered based on their circumstances so that similar outcomes are achieved for everyone. 
In health, both are important. For example, financial contributions to the health system should be equitable and low-income groups should not suffer from catastrophic health expenditure.
Access, on the other hand, should be equal: whoever needs to access services should have the right to do so, with the caveat that such need does exist.Failure to build an equal and equitable health system leads to health disparities or inequities – differences in health and disease based on socioeconomic and geographic aspects.Within the traditional health system context, equity and equality are considered along the lines of access, coverage and financing. These three are interlinked – for example, inequitable financing may lead to lack of access, or inequitable coverage may lead to inequitable financing.
In terms of access, geography is often a major barrier for those in greatest need. In terms of financing, out-of-pocket expenditure may be a reason not to access consultation or treatment. In terms of coverage, the design of health financing systems often excludes certain groups, for example employment-based insurance excluding the unemployed (who have increased risk of disease).
Beyond this context, health disparities are also directly produced by non-health factors, such as socioeconomic status (e.g. mental health, employment), behaviour (e.g. culture and tradition, as well as socioeconomic status), geography (e.g. infrastructure, pollution) and education (e.g. health literacy).
These, and many others, are termed social determinants of health () and emphasize why it is important for health to be framed holistically. : Equality vs Equity in Healthcare: Both Are Important
What is a health equity framework?
Communities working to achieve health equity often move beyond the social determinants of health (SDOH) to incorporate a systems approach to health, Health equity frameworks can help communities, health professionals, and others better understand how social, political, economic, and environmental factors affect health.
Why do we need equality in health?
Why is Diversity Important in Health and Social Care? – Both equality and diversity are essential components of health and social care. Good equality and diversity practices ensure that the services that are provided to people are accessible and fair to everyone involved, including service users and care providers.
- This helps everyone feel like they are treated equally and that they get the respect and dignity that they deserve.
- Good diversity ensures that everyone knows that their differences are something to be celebrated, whatever your background, ethnicity or belief.
- Diversity enhances creativity and encourages the search for new, innovative perspectives and information.
This leads to better problem-solving and decision-making, which can help improve the quality of your service while boosting its appeal.
What is the reason for focus on health equity?
Every person deserves to live a healthy life. Due to social, economic, and environmental factors, though, not everyone has access to health care and proper health education. Native Americans have a life expectancy that is 4.4 years less than that of Americans of all other races, for example.
RaceEthnicityAgeAbilitySexGender identity or expressionSexual orientationNationalitySocioeconomic statusGeographical location (i.e., rural or urban)
Health delivery services evolve and technology advances. Accordingly, healthcare professionals must keep pushing for equity in health care. Health equity advocacy takes many forms, including:
Ongoing research on the causes of health disparitiesContinuing education for healthcare professionals, including administrators, about the social determinants of healthImplementation of equitable health policies to effect lasting structural change that will improve health outcomes for vulnerable people
Why is equity more important than diversity?
Why equity is more important than diversity Organisations worldwide are in a mad rush to take forward their diversity, equity and inclusion agendas. Yes, the spotlight has been on DE&I lately, with organisations trying to outdo each other in showing how fearless and open they are in terms of giving opportunities to one and all.
- However, there is another debate taking place on the sidelines.
- Should diversity be given more importance or equity? Before we try to arrive at an answer, we should first try and understand the meaning and context of the words, ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’.
- Diversity, as we all know, is a strategy to make an organisation diverse in every sense of the word.
Earlier, India Inc. simply focused on gender diversity, but now people are talking about different forms of diversity such as religion, age, neurodiversity and more. It is about giving an opportunity to people from all walks of life. 
“Diversity means nothing without equity and Inclusion” Anup Seth, chief diversity & inclusion officer, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance On the other hand, equity is more to do with the mindset of the organisation. It is about understanding the needs, problems and challenges of a diverse set of people and coming up with a tailor-made solution for all, so that equality is ensured and justified.
Simply put, while diversity leads to the presence of differences within an organisation, equity is the process that ensures impartial and fair systems through which the possible outcomes are equal for each employee. For instance, by hiring persons with disability or PWD, an organisation ensures diversity.
However, by giving special attention to the mobility and special needs of PWD — by building ramps or exclusive lifts for their safe, convenient and hassle-free movement — an organisation ensures equity. Additionally, making sure that everybody accepts these special arrangements for such people, will lead to true equity.
- As Seema Bangia, VP & chief people officer, Mahindra Agriculture, Defence and Aerospace businesses, defines, “Equity is a mindset that needs to be developed in an organisation.” Bangia is quite clear and certain that equity is by far more important than diversity in an organisation.
- She tries to explain that often HR leaders are asked to make the workforce diverse, “but we should first ask ourselves how we are going to sustain diversity if we do not have a plan in place to provide tailor-made solutions to a diverse workforce”.
Anup Seth, chief diversity & inclusion officer, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, also states, “Diversity means nothing without equity and Inclusion.” 
“Building a diverse organisation will automatically lead to the need or necessity for having equity in the company” Naresh Kumar Puritipati, HR director, Lactalis India He further explains that equity is like creating a balance in an organisation. For instance, let’s look at women as an employee cohort and lets look at what diversity without equity would look like.
Companies may recruit a larger female workforce for the sake of diversity, but pass them up for important opportunities for reasons like caregiving responsibilities, maternity, etc. In other cases, organisations may look at reseting the age-old faults in the workplace culture at large by giving disproportionate opportunities of growth only to women.
Both these scenarios are not ideal because in the first case its only tokenism and in the second you are discriminating against another set of employees, which is men, in a bid to fix what’s broken. “Equity is more nuanced than that. It is about recognising where different people are coming from, the legacies they carry, and then offering them adequate and relevant opportunities based on their merit,” Seth mentions.
- Seth further puts an example of two equally capable employees who are up for appraisal – one man and a woman – you may consider giving the man a 10 per cent raise and the woman a 15 per cent raise.
- This way, you are taking gradual but concrete steps to bring them at par in terms of pay.
- You are also ensuring that the company is not alienating one cohort for the benefit of other.
The gimmicky approach of many organisations in the industry is what actually leads to this debate. As both Bangia and Seth mention, there are organisations that just fall into the rat race to achieve diversity in numbers. In doing so, they miss out on incorporating a mindset of equity in an organisation. 
“Equity is a mindset that needs to be developed in an organisation” Seema Bangia, VP & chief people officer, Mahindra Agriculture, Defence and Aerospace businesses If equity is more important than diversity, how can one build an equity mindset without diversity? Naresh Kumar Puritipati, HR director, Lactalis India, rightly asks, “If the population is not made diverse first, who would be the takers for equity in an organisation?” He goes on to add, “Building a diverse organisation will automatically lead to the need or necessity for having equity in the company”.
Even without creating a diverse workforce or endeavouring to especially achieve diversity of any sort, there does exist age or generational diversity in every company. Making tailor-made policies for all can take the organisation closer to achieving a mindset of equity. Clearly, equity is winning the debate by just a margin.
Many a time, the approach of an organisation towards its DE&I strategy depends on which cycle of development the organisation is in. The organisation may even decide its approach based on the the talent supply and demand game of a diverse talent pool.
- Accordingly, it will prioritise either equity or diversity.
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How can we reduce health disparities?
Raising Awareness Among Health Care Providers – Raising awareness through education can help address health equity. Improving resource coordination can also help populations most harmed by health disparities. For example, health care organizations can help reduce ethnic health disparities by offering cultural competency training to health care providers.
What are the three pillars of health equity?
3 Health Equity Pillars of ACO REACH 
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many systemic problems across the globe, but none more acutely than health disparities in the U.S. healthcare system. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center is tackling this disparity head on, with goals to incorporate elements in their health care models that specifically address health equity.
- The most advanced of these models is the,
- This refocused and redesigned total cost of care model is designed with three major pillars aiming to reduce health disparities in the traditional Medicare beneficiary populations they serve.
- As set forth in their, the Innovation Center is committed to including health equity in all its models.
For ACO REACH, each ACO must collect certain data for the beneficiaries aligned to the ACO. Participant Providers in the ACO must choose between three standardize collection data tools to fulfill this requirement. The survey asks questions surrounding financial strain, employment, education, substance abuse, and mental health.
Providers will also gather data on race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, and gender identity. ACOs collecting and reporting this data can use it to identify and target underserved communities experiencing provider shortages, food and housing insecurities, or other social needs. Secondly, ACOs are required to create a Health Equity Plan or HEP.
The HEP is the Innovation Center’s first comprehensive requirement to help ACOs identify health disparities and address the issues. The HEP will be a living document, one that changes as providers and ACOs learn more about the population they serve. Most plans will require additional editing and refinement as more data is captured and care gaps are identified.
- ACOs are charged with identifying one health disparity experienced by at least one underserved community and working to correct that over the course of the next four years.
- Finally, the Innovation Center realizes that the work around health equity and disparities is intensive, usually requiring extra resources.
To offset some of that cost, CMS will identify the underserved population using a composite score that incorporates the Area Deprivation Index or as well as Dual Medicaid Status. The ADI is publicly available data that measures down to the census block.
For each beneficiary considered in the highest decile, equating to the most underserved population, CMS will increase the ACO’s benchmark (or target spending) by $30 per beneficiary per month. For those ACOs with beneficiaries lower than 5 deciles, CMS will decrease the ACO’s benchmark $6 per beneficiary per month.
This assumes that it takes fewer dollars to take care of fewer sick patients. These three pillars: social determinants of health data collection, the Health Equity Plan, and the benchmark adjustment are a starting point for addressing these issues, but there is much more work to be done.
Affecting care in these communities is more than data points and plans; it takes real people making a real difference in the lives of individuals. So, let’s get to work. The statements contained in this document are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CMS.
The authors assume responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the information contained in this document.
What is health equity interventions?
Complex interventions usually focus on structural and/or process aspects of care or organization. Strategies aim to improve policies and the way care is organized and delivered. Health equity interventions focus attention on: Addressing inequitable distribution of the determinants of health.
What is the difference between equity and health equity?
December 7th, 2022 | Population Health Management & Improvement | Social Determinants of Health – When discussing health equity and disparities, it’s important to first understand the difference between the two terms. The CDC defines health disparities as the metric used to measure and describe the differences in health outcomes between different groups, while health equity is the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health.1 Many populations experience health disparities, but the most impacted groups include some racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, women, people who are LGBTQI+ and people with limited English proficiency. 
Equity means fairness in health care outcomes, regardless of the impact of any Social Determinants of Health (SDoH). The CDC’s statement on health equity notes the expectation for equal treatment and care for everyone, regardless of their background.2 Over the last several years, population health and medical fields have made significant advancements in addressing this area.
Even so, health equity remains an ongoing focus for policy makers and leadership in the health care industry. In order to successfully improve population health, we must remain aware of the disparities within the populations we are analyzing, and find appropriate solutions to address them. To that end, we are excited to announce an upcoming e-guide focused on addressing health equity using the ACG System, ” Disparities in Health Care and How Population Health Analytics Can Help “.
In this free e-guide, you’ll learn how to:
Address health equity using data you already have Identify disparities in practice and policy Develop an impactful health equity strategy
Keep an eye on our blog to be the first to read it when it’s released. Or click here to subscribe to our email list to be notified about future blog posts and start receiving valuable insights from population health experts at Johns Hopkins. If you have any questions or want to learn more about the ACG System, please email us at [email protected] or if you are an existing ACG System customer, please contact your account manager.
What are examples of equality in health?
Health equality vs. health equity – Health equality means everyone has the same opportunities. Examples could include a community center offering free or low-cost checkups to everyone. Health equity means that people have opportunities based on their needs.
An example could be the same health center charging people based on their ability to pay. A person who cannot afford care may receive it for free while another person may pay for the same care. In short, health equality means everyone receives the same standard, while health equity means everyone receives individualized care to bring them to the same level of health.
Health equality is not always preferable. For example, if a clinic offers free checkups every morning, a person who must work during the morning cannot take advantage of this service. While the clinic offers checkups to everyone on the same terms, some people still cannot take advantage of the service.
What are the 3 types of equality?
While identifying different kinds of inequalities that exist in society, various thinkers and ideologies have highlighted three main dimensions of equality namely, political, social and economic.
Is health equity a goal?
Health equity is a social justice goal focused on pursuing the highest possible standard of health and healthcare for all people, paying special attention to those in the context of greater risk of poor health, and taking into account broad social, political, and economic influences and access to care.
What is the best definition of equity?
What is Equity? – The term “equity” refers to fairness and justice and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.
What is equity focused?
Defining Equity-focused Teaching – Equity-focused Teaching is a corrective tool that allows instructors to acknowledge and disrupt historical and contemporary patterns of educational disenfranchisement that often negatively impact marginalized and minoritized students.
Have equal access to learning Feel valued and supported in their learning Experience parity in achieving positive course outcomes Share responsibility for the equitable engagement and treatment of all in the learning community.
Equity-focused teaching is an ongoing commitment and practice that should develop across the life of a teaching career. This commitment is always in the service of achieving just experiences and outcomes for both students and teachers alike. CRLT provides training opportunities and individual and unit consultation on equitable and inclusive teaching year-round.
For information on workshops and other events, please see our upcoming events page, To request a meeting with a CRLT consultant to discuss equitable and inclusive teaching in your course or department, please fill out and submit our contact form, The Equity-focused Teaching @ Michigan Series (ET@M) is a signature program at CRLT that offers U-M instructors opportunities to learn from experts as well as think together, build skills, and share strategies around the many dimensions of inclusive and equity-focused teaching.
Click here to explore more about this annual May event.
How do you use health equity?
Using your card – Account cards must be activated before use. See our article on activating account cards for instructions. Cards must be run as ‘credit’ (card may be declined if run as debit) and no personal identification number (PIN) is required. Once activated, use it like a regular credit card to pay for your plan-allowed medical expenses (for HSA and FSA plans, see our article on qualified medical expenses ).
All account cards have a $5,000 daily spending limit (subject to change based on transaction criteria). Cards cannot be used at an ATM. You can only spend what is available in your account; no overdraft is available.
See the following pages for specific issues with your HealthEquity account card:
Why was my card declined? How do I report fraud on my account card? How do I add documentation in the mobile app? How do I add documentation on the member portal?
What is meant by health promotion?
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions.