The DOI matches its Crossref record; 36 of the 36 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Defining health and health inequalities
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVES: To examine existing definitions of health and health inequalities and to synthesise the most useful of these using explicit rationale and the most parsimonious text. STUDY DESIGN: Literature review and synthesis. METHODS: Existing definitions of health and health inequalities were identified, and their normative properties were extracted and then critically appraised. Using explicit reasoning, new definitions, synthesising the most useful aspects of existing definitions, were created. RESULTS: A definition of health as a structural, functional and emotional state that is compatible with effective life as an individual and as a member of society and a definition of health inequalities as the systematic, avoidable and unfair differences in health outcomes that can be observed between populations, between social groups within the same population or as a gradient across a population ranked by social position are proposed. Population health is a less commonly used term but can usefully be defined to encompass the average, distribution and inequalities in health within a society. CONCLUSIONS: Clarifying what is meant by the terms health and health inequalities, and the assumptions, emphasis and values that different definitions contain, is important for public health research, practice and policy.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Sen, A. (2009) · Rugman Reviews · doi:10.1007/978-1-137-28787-8_94 · Cited by 15,837
Clapp, J., & Sen, A. (1999) · International Journal · doi:10.2307/40203469 · Cited by 13,411
OTTAWA CHARTER FOR HEALTH PROMOTION
(1986) · Health Promotion International · doi:10.1093/heapro/1.4.405 · Cited by 3,848
Sick individuals and sick populations
Rose, G. (2001) · International Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.1093/ije/30.3.427 · Cited by 3,736
Huber, M., Knottnerus, J. A., Green, L., Horst, H. V. D., Jadad, A. R., Kromhout, D., Leonard, B., Lorig, K., Loureiro, M. I., Meer, J. W. M. V. D., et al. (2011) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.d4163 · Cited by 2,637
The Concepts and Principles of Equity and Health
Whitehead, M. (1992) · International Journal of Health Services · doi:10.2190/986l-lhq6-2vte-yrrn · Cited by 2,284
The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost always do Better
Johnston, R. (2009) · Political Geography · doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.10.003 · Cited by 2,045
A glossary for health inequalities
Kawachi, I., Subramanian, S. V., & Almeida-Filho, N. (2002) · Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.56.9.647 · Cited by 954
Toward a new definition of mental health
Galderisi, S., Heinz, A., Kastrup, M., Beezhold, J., & Sartorius, N. (2015) · World Psychiatry · doi:10.1002/wps.20231 · Cited by 938
A glossary for social epidemiology
Krieger, N. (2001) · Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.55.10.693 · Cited by 852
Cited by
Health inequalities, fundamental causes and power: towards the practice of good theory
McCartney, G., Dickie, E., Escobar, O., & Collins, C. (2021) · Sociology of Health & Illness · doi:10.1111/1467-9566.13181 · Cited by 110
Self-citationLekadir, K., Osuala, R., Gallin, C., Lazrak, N., Kushibar, K., Tsakou, G., Aussó, S., Alberich, L. C., Marias, K., Tsiknakis, M., et al. (2021) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2109.09658 · Cited by 58
Social needs screening in primary care: A tool in the fight for health equity?
Painter, H., Parry, E., McCann, L., Dehn Lunn, A., & Ford, J. (2024) · Public Health in Practice · doi:10.1016/j.puhip.2024.100466 · Cited by 13
Domínguez-Ares, E., Martín-Olmedo, P., & Iglesias-Merchan, C. (2020) · Environmental Impact Assessment Review · doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106445 · Cited by 6
Metadata
- Authors
- McCartney, G., Popham, F., McMaster, R., & Cumbers, A.
- Venue
- Public Health
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-07
- Volume
- 172
- Pages
- 22-30
- ISSN
- 0033-3506 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2947519338
- Cited by
- 422
- References
- 36
- FWCI
- 26.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Defining health and health inequalities. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.puhe.2019.03.023
- The paper
- McCartney, G., Popham, F., McMaster, R., & Cumbers, A. (2019). Defining health and health inequalities. Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2019.03.023
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.