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Chapter 7 - The Human Right to Health

from Section 2 - Global Health Ethics, Responsibilities, and Justice: Some Central Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2021

By
Jonathan Wolff
Edited by
Solomon Benatar  and
Gillian Brock
Solomon Benatar
Affiliation:
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town
Gillian Brock
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland
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Summary

It is hardly news that the health and life expectancy of many of the peoples of the developing world fall well below what we might think should be a reasonable standard. Health inequalities remain stark. For example, according to one source, in 2018 life expectancy at birth was 85.5 years for those born in Japan but a depressingly low 52 years for those born in Afghanistan (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], 2019). This gap is highly significant, although it represents a great improvement for those at the bottom compared with the situation merely 10 years ago, where a life expectancy of 32 years was reported for Eswatini (then known as Swaziland; CIA, 2009). If this figure is to be believed, then it may well be that adult male life expectancy in Swaziland was the lowest it had ever been in history, or at least not far above.

Type
Chapter
Information
Global Health
Ethical Challenges
 , pp. 110 - 121
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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