Defining health equity.

Most people, if asked, would say that they are in favour of health equity. The term connotes fairness, and justice, which many Canadians would see as consistent with our values. And yet, when we push further to define the actions necessary to drive improved health equity, it is apparent that substantive differences regarding how health equity is defined persist. In this piece, we posit that agreement on some basic principles of a definition of health equity is the starting point from which the required changes in our healthcare system can be shaped and the conditions in which we might measure the impact of these changes can be created.