Inequalities in Health and Intergenerational Equity

In the popular folklore three-score-years-and-ten is treated as a fair innings for people, and thereby serves as an informal reference point for judgements about distributive justice within a community. But length of life alone is an insufficient basis for such judgements - a person's health-re...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Williams, Alan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 1999
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 1999, Volume: 2, Issue: 1, Pages: 47-55
Further subjects:B social solidarity
B life expectancy
B Quality-adjusted life years
B inequalities in health
B Distributive Justice
B intergenerational equity
B fair innings
B age discrimination
B QALYs (Quality-adjusted life years)
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Summary:In the popular folklore three-score-years-and-ten is treated as a fair innings for people, and thereby serves as an informal reference point for judgements about distributive justice within a community. But length of life alone is an insufficient basis for such judgements - a person's health-related quality-of-life also needs to be taken into account. If one of the objectives of public policy is to reduce inequalities in lifetime health, it will be demonstrated that this is very likely to require systematic discrimination against the older members of a community. The notion of community solidatity will also be tested, because a decision will need to be made as to whether the same fair innings applies to all members of the community, or whether some are entitled to more than others. The strength of the fair innings principle is that it brings these issues to the fore in a systematic way which should ais their resolition in a practical context.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1009922327634