Vienna Public Health Equity Project

Autor(en)
Thomas Resch
Abstrakt

Contemporary public health and healthcare are navigating a complex landscape marked by limited resources, conflicting individual and collective preferences, and the challenge of improving efficiency while maintaining quality. This scenario raises a multitude of ethical and moral questions, necessitating state intervention through stewardship and governance. Governments worldwide strive to enhance utility, value for money, and health equity, guided by principles of distributive and procedural justice. The moral underpinnings of public health activities, such as overall benefit, collective efficiency, distributive fairness, and harm prevention, are crucial in addressing global health resource challenges. These considerations encompass efficiency, equity, rights, and other ethical issues. The distribution of resources, whether based on noncorrelative or correlative principles, is a key aspect of justice in public health. Public health efforts are also focused on mitigating the adverse effects of socio-economic determinants on health outcomes and addressing health disparities. This is particularly vital for vulnerable, high-risk, and marginalized groups who face unique challenges like historic injustices, discrimination, and specific social or physical needs. The project at hand delves into the concepts outlined by Peragine, focusing on measuring individual opportunity sets, assessing inequality in opportunity distribution, and designing mechanisms to enhance 'opportunity equality'. A representative survey of Vienna's population (N=1411) explores various dimensions: Socio-demography: This module gathers data on gender, age, education, and migration background. Health: It assesses individual health status, chronic conditions, multimorbidity, and health-related behaviors. Socio-economic status: This includes occupation, net income, asset wealth, and other indicators of social or economic capital. Access to healthcare: Respondents provide insights into their experiences with healthcare access, including barriers and needs. Affordability of healthcare: Questions revolve around health-related expenditures and attitudes towards healthcare coverage and benefits. Provision of healthcare: This focuses on the quality and timeliness of medical interventions and healthcare services. Justice-Fairness attitudes: The survey captures attitudes towards social/distributive justice and fairness in socio-economic and health-related aspects. Preferences for health policy and redistribution: This module explores public vs. private health insurance preferences and allocation preferences for the public health budget. Solidarity & Reciprocity: Estimating solidarity through measures of social trust, cooperative behavior, sharing, helping, and expressions of solidarity. Overall, this comprehensive approach aims to address the intricate interplay of ethical, moral, and practical considerations in public health and healthcare, emphasizing the need for equitable and just solutions in a resource-constrained environment.

Organisation(en)
Universität Wien
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856794
Publikationsdatum
11-2023
ÖFOS 2012
504030 Wirtschaftssoziologie, 504007 Empirische Sozialforschung, 504019 Mediensoziologie, 303026 Public Health
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 3 – Gesundheit und Wohlergehen
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/0a838fa0-7fd2-4172-b170-1b4dcecaa7df