What's Fair in Health Care? Thinking with Americans about Health and Health Care Inequalities

Award Year: 2006	Investigator: Julia Lynch	Budget: $282,174	Categories: Health Disparities, Social Equity
Abstract: Many inequalities are evident in the health of Americans and in the U.S. health care system. Whites live longer than African Americans. People who earn lower incomes and work for small businesses are less likely to have health insurance coverage through their employer. Some people receive high-quality medical care while others don't. Yet little is known about how Americans view these inequalities and the policies that might reduce them. Julia F. Lynch, Ph.D. seeks to fill this knowledge gap through public opinion surveys and interviews with policy elites and ordinary people. Her project, What's Fair in Health Care? Thinking with Americans about Health and Health Care Inequalities, examines the frames that policy elites use to communicate ideas about inequalities, and how such frames interact with public beliefs about fairness to produce or hamper support for needed reforms. Lynch aims to produce information that can help policymakers and advocates better understand the complexity of public attitudes, and design policies that are most likely to generate support for change.