Oke Gabriel Ilerioluwa, Sibomana Olivier
University of Global Health Equity Butaro Rwanda.
Department of General Medicine and Surgery College of Medicine and Health Sciences University of Rwanda Kigali Rwanda.
Public Health Chall. 2025 Mar 11;4(1):e70040. doi: 10.1002/puh2.70040. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Health inequality, disparity, and inequity are critical global health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Africa's healthcare systems have been profoundly impacted by these issues for decades, leading to severe and far-reaching consequences. This rapid review aims to explore the concepts of health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa, identify their root causes, and propose practical recommendations to address them.
A comprehensive search was conducted across PubMed, Google Scholar, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and through manual searches on Google to identify literature on health inequalities, disparities, and inequities in Africa. Key terms, such as "Health inequality," "Health disparity," "Health inequity," "Health injustice," "Health unfairness," "Healthcare access," and "Health challenges," were employed. The identified literature was carefully reviewed, and relevant sources were selected to discuss the concepts, causes, and potential solutions to these differences in health outcomes across Africa.
Although some aspects of health inequality are linked to unmodifiable factors, health disparities and inequities are often the result of preventable and modifiable factors and can be addressed through targeted efforts. The root causes of health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa include poverty, inadequate education, corruption, poor governance, geographic isolation, unsupportive environmental conditions, cultural norms, and international influences. Solutions to these differences in health outcome lie in reversing the root causes.
Addressing health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa requires a multifaceted approach, including improving education, healthcare infrastructure, and gender equality, alleviating poverty, and ensuring fair governance to achieve equitable health outcomes.
健康不平等、差异和不公平是全球重大的健康挑战，在低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）尤为如此。几十年来，非洲的医疗保健系统深受这些问题的影响，导致了严重且影响深远的后果。本快速综述旨在探讨非洲健康不平等、差异和不公平的概念，找出其根本原因，并提出切实可行的建议来解决这些问题。
通过在PubMed、谷歌学术、开放获取期刊目录（DOAJ）上进行全面搜索，并在谷歌上进行手动搜索，以识别有关非洲健康不平等、差异和不公平的文献。使用了“健康不平等”、“健康差异”、“健康不公平”、“健康不公正”、“健康不公平性”、“医疗保健可及性”和“健康挑战”等关键词。对所识别的文献进行了仔细审查，并挑选了相关资料来讨论非洲各地这些健康结果差异的概念、原因和潜在解决方案。
虽然健康不平等的某些方面与不可改变的因素有关，但健康差异和不公平往往是可预防和可改变因素造成的，可通过有针对性的努力加以解决。非洲健康不平等、差异和不公平的根本原因包括贫困、教育不足、腐败、治理不善、地理隔离、不利的环境条件、文化规范和国际影响。解决这些健康结果差异的办法在于扭转根本原因。
解决非洲的健康不平等、差异和不公平问题需要采取多方面的方法，包括改善教育、医疗保健基础设施和性别平等，减轻贫困，并确保公平治理以实现公平的健康结果。
