The term “health equity” is used by policy makers, healthcare professionals, and members of the community. However, at times, the term can vary in its definitions.

Most people seem to use the term to imply fairness and equality in access to care.

Medical associations at local, county, state, national, and international levels suggest that “health equity” involves a fairness in access to obtaining care. However, some associations include “quality of care” and “services” in their definitions. Other groups are looser in the definition such that the financing and payments for the services are involved.

In the weeks ahead, I will be blogging on source documents from specific international, national, state, and county levels. Also, there are statements from specific medical associations at multiple levels.

Unfortunately, there are few people that are attempting to converge these definitions. There are some groups and organizations that are attempting to standardize these definitions. As my blogging continues, I hope to meet these people and then align their definitions to specific situations in Southern California and Hawaii where gaps for specific communities are known to exist.