Health Inequalities, Law, and Society

This chapter explores some critical questions within studies of health inequalities and law, with attention to the marginalisation of different voices in relation to these. It explains that, to address health inequalities, we must be clear on what we mean by health and which groups we identify as suffering health inequalities. The chapter shows how healthcare laws that formally offer equal opportunities present critical challenges: the ‘all’ in ‘healthcare for all’ does not mean everyone. Furthermore, even for those with equal entitlement to healthcare, we see unequal health opportunities and outcomes: a phenomenon known as the inverse care law. However, most significantly, the greater causes of health inequalities are not about healthcare, but about our broader natural, built, and social environments. The chapter therefore explains how legal studies of health inequalities need to look both at and far beyond healthcare, generating understanding of how laws can and do influence health within different social contexts, and with a view to how laws may help better achievement of social justice.