Antimicrobial Resistance and Social Inequalities in Health: Considerations of Justice

Within-country social inequalities in health have widened while global health inequalities have (with some exceptions) narrowed since the Second World War. On commonly accepted prioritarian and sufficientist views of justice and health, these two trends together would be acceptable: the wealthiest of the wealthy are pulling ahead, but the worst off are catching up and more are achieving sufficiency. Such commitments to priority or sufficiency are compatible with a common “development” narrative about economic and social changes that accompany changes (“transitions”) in population health. I set out a very simple version of health egalitarianism (without commitment to any particular current theory of justice) and focus on two common objections to egalitarianism. Priority and sufficiency both address the levelling down and formalism objections, but these objections are distinct: giving content to equality (I argue here) places in question the claimed normative superiority of priority and sufficiency. Using examples of the role of antimicrobials in both these trends – and the future role of AMR – I clarify (first) the multiple forms and dimensions of justice at play in health, and (second) the different mechanisms at work in generating the two current patterns (seen in life course narratives and narratives of political economy). The “accelerated transition” that narrowed global health inequalities is fed by anti-microbials (among other technology transfers). It did not accelerate but replaced the causal processes by which current HICs achieved the transition (growing and shared economic prosperity and widening political franchise). The impact of AMR on widening social inequalities in health in HICs will be complex: inequality has been fed in part by tertiary care enabled by antimicrobials; AMR might erode the solidarity underlying universal health systems as the well-off seek to maintain current expectations of curative and rehabilitative surgery and chemotherapy while AMR mounts. In light of both speculations about the impact of AMR on social and global health inequalities, I close with practical and with theoretical reflection. I briefly indicate the practical importance of understanding AMR from the perspective of health justice for policy response. Then, from a broader perspective, I argue that the content by which I meet the formalism objection demonstrates that the two trends (broadening within-country inequality and narrowing global inequality) are selective and biased samples of a centuries-long pattern of widening social inequalities in health. We are not in the midst of a process of “catching up”. In light of the long-term pattern described here, is the pursuit of sufficiency or priority morally superior to the pursuit of equality as a response to concrete suffering – or do they rationalize a process more objectively described as the best-off continuing to take the largest share of one of the most important benefits of economic development?