(by Raegan Moore and Steven Black)

The concept of health equity has the implication that everyone should have the same health opportunities available to them regardless of income, ethnicity, gender, or anything else that may set them apart. Although good health starts with individual choices, such as eating well, exercising, not smoking or drinking too much alcohol, and going for regular doctor visits, health issues can sometimes be unavoidable and not the outcome of one’s life choices. In public health, the role that inequities and inequalities play in shaping one’s risk of becoming ill are well-recognized, discussed under the umbrella of the “social determinants of health.”

Scholarship in medical anthropology tends to take this analysis a step further, recognizing that individuals and communities living just a few miles apart may experience different health outcomes and opportunities. For example, people of color may experience different outcomes and opportunities with their health and the healthcare available to them compared to their white neighbors. Most researchers focus more on refugees and immigrants, indigenous peoples, racial and ethnic minority groups, as well as the low invested neighborhoods in which they live.

Recent linguistic anthropological scholarship emphasizes the ways that health inequities and communicative inequities are intertwined. In the future, we hope to have blog posts about examples relevant to the topic of language, health, and social justice.