Distributing global health resources: Contemporary issues in political philosophy

Abstract

How should states and international organizations allocate global health resources? This paper examines proposals for distributing these resources in the literature. First, we look at the literature on the metrics for measuring what matters and consider how they might be modified to avoid some common objections—e.g., that these measures discriminate against the disabled or fail to give due weight to helping the young (or old) or those in present (or future) generations. Second, we canvas existing approaches to evaluating allocations of health‐related resources utilizing such measures and advance a new way of doing so. We suggest that it is important to provide substantive arguments for directly evaluating alternative allocations, but there is also room for deliberation about fair procedures for selecting allocation criteria and securing just outcomes.

Will urban scale affect health services inequity? The empirical evidence from cities in China

“…This inequality further affects the health status of individuals, such as differences in infant mortality and life expectancy ( 26 ). Now, with the improvement of economic development, people’s demand for health services is increasing, and the public health resources in many developing countries are facing great challenges in this situation ( 27 , 28 ). In the face of serious challenges, many developing countries are more prone to the distribution of health resources, and this lack of access to health services has exacerbated the poverty situation of the lower class, leading to the widening trend of health inequality ( 29 ).…”

Geographical Pattern Evolution of Health Resources in China: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics and Spatial Mismatch

“…Health resources are scarce, basic, and public social services, and improving the spatial balance and equity of health resources is a vital target of governments and international organizations [ 6 , 7 ]. As the quality of life improves the population’s demand for health services, which is on the rise, leading to the fact that the capacity to supply health resources in many countries, especially in developing countries, it is facing great challenges against the background of increasingly high medical costs [ 8 , 9 ]. At present, the shortage of health resources goes hand-in-hand with their waste across the world, which, in essence, reflects the imbalance between the demand and supply of health resources [ 10 ].…”

Democratic Ethical Consumption and Social Justice

“…133-136). On the well-founded assumption that buying medicines from companies with a positive health impact will improve access to essential medicines for 1 Hassoun has of course written extensively on this, for a selection see: (Hassoun, 2012(Hassoun, , 2014(Hassoun, , 2015b(Hassoun, , 2015a(Hassoun, , 2016(Hassoun, , 2019 2 For other important contributions to the debate over essential medicines see (Sonderholm, 2009(Sonderholm, , 2014Hassoun and Herlitz, 2019) the world's poor, Hassoun argues that we, as consumers, should do so (Hassoun, 2020, pp. 121-122).…”