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Kwon, Lee, and Bae: Concept Analysis of Health Inequalities
Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration 2015; 21(1): 20-31.

Published online: 31 January 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11111/jkana.2015.21.1.20

Concept Analysis of Health Inequalities

Jeong Ok Kwon1, Eun Nam Lee2, Sun Hyoung Bae2

1Graduate School, Department of Nursing, Dong-A University, Korea.

2Department of Nursing, Dong-A University, Korea.

Corresponding author: Lee, Eun Nam. Department of Nursing, Dong-A University, 3 Dongdaeshin-dong, Seo-gu, Busan 602-714, Korea. Tel: +82-51-240-2864, Fax: +82-51-240-2947, enlee@dau.ac.kr

Received 21 October 2014       Revised 20 December 2014       Accepted 19 January 2015

Copyright © 2015 Korean Academy of Nursing Administration

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore ways to define the concept of health inequality.

Methods

The concept analysis process by Walker and Avant was used to clarify the meaning of health inequality.

Results

Defining attributes of health inequality included differences in health status between individuals or groups, infringement of fundamental rights to health, unfair use of medical services, and social discrimination. The antecedents of health inequality included differences in demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, occupation, residential location), limitations in accessibility to health care, and social exclusion. Consequences of health inequality were increased costs for medical care, decreased health-related quality of life, and lack of ability to cope with health problems resulting in crisis situations, increases in morbidity and mortality, and shortening of life span. The concept was clarified through presentation of model, borderline, related, and contrary cases.

Conclusion

Results of this study can be used to guide the direction of future studies through concept analysis in which conceptual attributes in the context of health inequality are examined. Also, based on the result of this study, development of standardized tools to measure health inequality is recommended as well as development of educational programs to reduce health inequalities.

Keywords: Health inequalities, Concept analysis

Figures and Tables

Figure 1

Attributes, antecedent and consequences of health inequality.

jkana-21-20-g001

Notes

This work was supported by the Dong-A University research fund.

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