Abstract

The WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health revealed that there is a 28-year disparity between the life expectancy in the poorest postcode and the richest postcode of Glasgow (CSDH, 2008). There are two sets of questions that it is important to ask about health inequalities like these: first, epidemiological questions about the mechanisms that cause inequalities in health and the measures that are effective in reducing them. Second, normative questions about which inequalities in health are wrong and why they are wrong. The papers in this symposium result from the inaugural conference of UCL's Centre for Philosophy, Justice and Health (CPJH) and focus on the relationship between these epidemiological and normative questions.