1.2 What is equity?

Everyone has the ‘right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’ (UN, 1966).

Equity describes conditions in which ‘everyone can attain their full potential for health and wellbeing’ through ‘the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or by other dimensions of inequality (e.g. sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation)’.

(WHO, n.d. 1)
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Figure 1 The difference between equality and equity.
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Two pictures that use bicycles to compare equality and equity. In the first picture, labelled ‘Equality’, the same type of bicycle is provided to all four people, regardless of how suitable it is for them or whether it meets their needs. In the second picture, labelled ‘Equity’, each person has a bicycle that is suited to their needs.

Figure 1 The difference between equality and equity.

  • How does Figure 1 illustrate the difference between equality and equity?

  • In the ‘equality’ part of the figure, all the individuals are given the same type of bicycle regardless of their specific needs. In the ‘equity’ part, each individual is provided with a bicycle that suits their specific needs.

1 Why gender and equity matter in global health

2 A biosocial approach to health