Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly

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Cambridge University Press, Oct 22, 2007 - Philosophy
In this book by the award-winning author of Just Healthcare, Norman Daniels develops a comprehensive theory of justice for health that answers three key questions: what is the special moral importance of health? When are health inequalities unjust? How can we meet health needs fairly when we cannot meet them all? Daniels' theory has implications for national and global health policy: can we meet health needs fairly in ageing societies? Or protect health in the workplace while respecting individual liberty? Or meet professional obligations and obligations of justice without conflict? When is an effort to reduce health disparities, or to set priorities in realising a human right to health, fair? What do richer, healthier societies owe poorer, sicker societies? Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly explores the many ways that social justice is good for the health of populations in developed and developing countries.

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Page 87 - Simply stated, it is not just the size of the economic pie, but how the pie is shared, that matters for population health. It is not the absolute deprivation associated with low economic development (lack of access to the basic material conditions necessary for health such as clean water, adequate nutrition and housing, and general sanitary living conditions) that explains health differences among developed nations, but the degree of relative deprivation within them. Relative deprivation refers not...
Page 221 - A physician may not ethically refuse to treat a patient whose condition is within the physician's current realm of competence solely because the patient is seropositive.
Page 93 - Rawls's argument for the difference principle and the extensive critical literature it has generated is beyond the scope of this chapter. It is important, however, to distinguish Rawls's own social contract argument from the many informal and intuitive reformulations of it. See Brian Barry (1989).
Page 125 - The technology must have final approval from the appropriate government regulatory bodies. 2. The scientific evidence must permit conclusions concerning the effect of the technology on health outcomes. 3. The technology must improve the net health outcome. 4. The technology must be as beneficial as any established alternatives.
Page 61 - ... know about some features of the society, for example, its resource limitations. Still, using the normal opportunity range and not just the effective range as the baseline has the effect of imposing a plausibly thinned veil. It reflects basic facts about the society but keeps facts about individuals' particular ends from unduly influencing social decisions. Ultimately, defense of a veil depends on the theory of the person underlying the account. The intuition here is that persons are not defined...
Page 232 - However the cost of medical service may be distributed, the immediate cost should be borne by the patient if able to pay at the time the service is rendered.
Page 37 - Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." From the Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization. Adopted by the International Health Conference held in New York, 19 June-22 July 1946, and signed on 22 July 1946. Off. Rec. Wld. Health Org. 2, no. 100. See Daniel Callahan, "The WHO Definition of 'Health,'" The Hastings Center Studies, 1, no.

About the author (2007)

Norman Daniels is Mary B. Saltonstall Professor and Professor of Ethics and Populations Health at Harvard School of Public Health. A member of the Institute of Medicine, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, a Founding Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the International Society for Equity in Health, he has consulted for organisations, commissions, and governments, including the United Nations, WHO, and the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine, on issues of justice and health policy. Dr Daniels is the author of numerous books. He has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and held a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator's Award as well as a Rockefeller Foundation grant for the international adaptation of benchmarks.

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