Equity objectives in Portuguese health policy

The health-equity debate has generally given far more attention to empirical rather than conceptual matters. However, empirical work on equity is at its most useful when it can be related to a specific normative framework, such as that provided by public pronouncements. This paper, therefore, aims to extract the precise equity objectives of one health care system, that of Portugal. Three seemingly distinct objectives in Portuguese health policy are identified: (i) access to health promoting commodities; (ii) equal access to NHS care for equal need; and (iii) equal access to both public and private health care. The final section attempts to find common threads running through these definitions and presents suggestions for future research. Though referred specifically to Portugal, the paper should be of interest to researchers in other countries, where a great deal of health-equity investigation continues to put the cart before the horse, by identifying unequal distributions without considering if they are simultaneously inequitable.