Assignment
Health is tied to the distribution of resources. The single strongest predictor of our health is our position on the class ladder. Whether measured by income, schooling, or occupation, those at the top have the most power and resources, and on average live longer and healthier lives. Those at the bottom are most disempowered and get sicker and die younger. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. On average, people in the middle are twice as likely to die an early death compared to those at the top; those on the bottom are four times as likely. Even among people who smoke, poor smokers have a greater risk of premature death than rich smokers," according to Unnatural Causes...Is Inequity Making Us Sick? Action Toolkit (2008).
Given the relevance that resources play in determining health, you will examine health care policy from the lens of resource allocation ethics.
• Select a global health issue from the past 5 years. Possible issues could be COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, Zika, delivering heath care in conflict zones, protecting people from dangerous products, health misinformation, substance abuse, and mental health.
• Research how policy was used to address the issue, either nationally or globally.
• Select a specific policy that was created to address some aspect of the issue.
• Analyze the policy using the lens of resource allocation ethics.
• Write your analysis in which you:
1) Describe the global health issue.
2) Summarize the policy created to address some element of the global health issue.
3) Explain the ethical resource allocation framework you used to analyze the policy.
4) This is the criteria you used to judge the merits of the policy.
Analyze the policy, in which you answer the following:
1) What basis did the policy use to determine how resources would be allocated?
2) What were the outcomes of the policy?
3) What tradeoffs were made (i.e., who received resources and who did not)?
4) Was this policy fair, or did it give preferential treatment to some groups at the expense of others? Provide rationale for why the policy was fair or why it was not.
5) How does the criteria used to determine resource allocation in the policy differ from established criteria for ethical resource allocation?
6) If the policy had used an ethical framework to determine resource allocation, how would the outcomes have been different?
7) What tradeoff would have been made if an ethical resource allocation framework had been used in the policy?