Policy Brief: What Do Thai People Think About Health Equity?

Health equity is about ensuring that everyone has a fair opportunity to attain their full potential for health and well-being (WHO, 2010). The concept of health equity is important for Thai people; however, it has not been clearly measured. To do so, a "Health Inequality Aversion Survey” was conducted to understand how Thai people view health equity in terms of how much inequity they would be willing to tolerate.

Respondents of the survey were categorised into groups based on trade-offs between increasing health efficiency and reducing health inequality. As indicated by the survey results, the public, based on in-person surveys with 2,584 respondents, prioritises reducing health inequality to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice potential benefits for the disadvantaged groups (Egalitarians). In contrast, policymakers and the public, who responded through online surveys place more importance on improving the health of disadvantaged groups (Weighted Prioritarians). In summary, the results show that Thai people strongly prioritise health equity.

The insights from this survey will be utilised to evaluate cost-effectiveness through the Distributional Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (DCEA) method, being studied for the first time in Thailand and the Southeast Asia Region.

For further information and to keep up with the progress of the study, please access the full policy brief here https://www.hitap.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/PB-180_DCEA-EN.pdf

References:

WHO, 2010, Health Equity, [Online] https://www.who.int/health-topics/health-equity#tab=tab_1 (Accessed: 24 March 2025)