Main Library
“How can we advance health equity in cardiovascular care?” asked David Thompson, PhD, professor of nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, on day 2 of the 2024 European Society of Cardiology Congress.
To even know where to begin, it’s important to first understand that health equity and health equality are not the same, he explained in the session, “Diversity in Cardiovascular Care: Advancing Health Equity.”
“We use the terms health equity, health equality, disparities, and outcomes interchangeably, and sometimes that can lead to confusion,” he explained. Health equality calls for equal care for everyone, health equity calls for need-based fairness in care even in the presence of social determinants of health (SDOH), health disparities are how measures of health outcomes differ between groups, and health outcomes are just that—results following care.