ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 argues that health equity concepts are built into population health science and urges reorienting the debates over what health equity is and should be. I argue that philosophy of public health must be more cautious about its assumptions regarding the precise definition and/or moral foundation of health equity. As a matter of both philosophy of science and meta-ethics, making headway in health equity debates would be well served by reducing the reliance on hypothetical cases and problems, and increasing attention to the plethora of real (and really messy) cases of health inequities. In a related point, I argue for a shift in the health equity deliberations: insofar as health governance and health promotion are two sides of the same coin, health equity is best served by fostering equitable social structures of health governance. One important piece of that process is ensuring that diverse forms of knowledge, especially the oft-undervalued local knowledge held by non-scientists, are respected and included in population health science. The chapter is followed by a case study that illustrates the health equity dynamics discussed in the chapter: the field of scientific research on racial and ethnic health disparities.
