ABSTRACT
One useful activity to arrive at health's current prevailing definition is to review how we measure health. Measurement is a powerful process. Apt measurement can expand our accurate assessment of health and thereby identify ways to enhance it. Most of these proxy measures are actually measures of life span – of how long people in a specific place are likely to live, or how likely they are to die comparatively young. Our society devotes enormous resources to prolong life, regardless of its quality. Being in pain is unlucky, and, to the extent it limits freedom to function or have relationships with others, is a source of ill-health. Being free from pain, in the case, for example, of someone with cancer, is lucky. The issue of fairness also appears to be at play in the assessment of health. There may be some kind of association, some relationship, between health and fairness, but clearly health and fairness are very different.
