RT Article
T1 Proportionate Universalism and Public Health: An Analysis of WRR Policy Brief From Disparity to Potential
JF NTT
VO 75
IS 1
SP 73
OP 93
A1 Jedan, Christoph 1970-
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1753334470
AB The article analyses the public health policy brief From Disparity to Potential by the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). It argues that the WRR brief presents a distinctive and novel brand of proportionate universalism, a theory proposed by Sir Michael Marmot (2010). The article situates the brief in the wider debate on proportionate universalism and offers an evaluation from an ethical perspective. It argues that the WRRs version of proportionate universalism exhibits three flaws: (1) the definition of socio-economic status is unduly focused on education levels and thus ignores important, health-relevant disparities; (2) whilst the policy brief endorses subsidiarity, it remains focused on governmental and economic actors, ignoring the importance of voluntary associations such as churches and faith-based organizations; (3) the focus of proportionate universalism is quantitative and needs supplementing with theories of the good life, typically associated with theological and philosophical forms of ethics originating in the premodern era.
K1 Marmot Review
K1 WRR
K1 Ethics
K1 health disparity
K1 health potential
K1 proportionate universalism
K1 public health policy
K1 socio-economic status (SES)
DO 10.5117/NTT2021.1.005.JEDA