Basic concepts in population health and health care.

These definitions are intended to be operational definitions; that is, they are designed to facilitate the development of specific measures to assess their attainment, on the assumption that it does no good to provide a definition if it does not facilitate assessment of change or the extent to which a goal has been reached. For example, most definitions of equity use the terms “fairness” or “just”, but these characteristics seem to defy measurement. This is why the definitions may be quite diVerent from those you are accustomed to seeing or have encountered. The concepts defined herein are ones that either have no well accepted definitions or have definitions that have not proved useful either in informing my own research or in interpreting the literature. They derive from my experiences in designing research and trying to glean useful ideas from a diverse set of readings. Although the definitions are not likely to be readily accepted by everyone who considers them, the intent is to generate discussion so that research may move ahead with better conceptualisation of research topics and variables and more consistent interpretation of research findings.