Health Affairs April 12, 2018
The twin goals of improving the overall health of the population and of reducing or eliminating health inequalities among population groups are important to policy makers—both were among the overarching goals of Healthy People 2010 and 2020—but they can be at odds. Achieving the goal of longer, healthier years of life in a population does not necessarily achievethe goal of health equity; some strategies may actually temporarily increase inequalities. In a recent comparison of states’ overall improvements in mortality versus improvements in the black-white mortality gap, states often excelled on one of the measures but performed poorly on the other. A summary metric that combines performance on mean health outcomes and health inequality outcomes is needed, as Adam Wagstaff proposed...
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