Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race

This article is about the potential justification for deploying some form of affirmative action (AA) in the context of healthcare, and in particular in relation to the pandemic. We call this Affirmative Action in healthcare Resource Allocation (AARA). Specifically, we aim to investigate whether the...

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Main Authors: Zohny, H, Davies, B, Wilkinson, D
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2022
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author Zohny, H
Davies, B
Wilkinson, D
author_facet Zohny, H
Davies, B
Wilkinson, D
author_sort Zohny, H
collection OXFORD
description This article is about the potential justification for deploying some form of affirmative action (AA) in the context of healthcare, and in particular in relation to the pandemic. We call this Affirmative Action in healthcare Resource Allocation (AARA). Specifically, we aim to investigate whether the rationale and justifications for using prioritization policies based on race in education and employment apply in a healthcare setting, and in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic. We concentrate in this article on vaccines and ventilators because these are both highly scarce resources in the pandemic, and there has been a need to develop policies for allocating them. However, as will become clear, the ethical considerations relating to them may diverge. We first set out two rationales for AAs and what they might entail in a healthcare setting. We then consider some disanalogies between AA and AARA, as well as the different implications of AARA for allocating ventilators as opposed to vaccines. Finally, we consider some of the practical ways in which AARA could be implemented, and conclude by responding to some key objections.
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spelling oxford-uuid:4e695c70-7791-445b-ba3a-303aa80752d42022-11-15T07:51:26ZAffirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and raceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4e695c70-7791-445b-ba3a-303aa80752d4EnglishSymplectic ElementsWiley2022Zohny, HDavies, BWilkinson, DThis article is about the potential justification for deploying some form of affirmative action (AA) in the context of healthcare, and in particular in relation to the pandemic. We call this Affirmative Action in healthcare Resource Allocation (AARA). Specifically, we aim to investigate whether the rationale and justifications for using prioritization policies based on race in education and employment apply in a healthcare setting, and in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic. We concentrate in this article on vaccines and ventilators because these are both highly scarce resources in the pandemic, and there has been a need to develop policies for allocating them. However, as will become clear, the ethical considerations relating to them may diverge. We first set out two rationales for AAs and what they might entail in a healthcare setting. We then consider some disanalogies between AA and AARA, as well as the different implications of AARA for allocating ventilators as opposed to vaccines. Finally, we consider some of the practical ways in which AARA could be implemented, and conclude by responding to some key objections.
spellingShingle Zohny, H
Davies, B
Wilkinson, D
Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title_full Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title_fullStr Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title_full_unstemmed Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title_short Affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation: vaccines, ventilators and race
title_sort affirmative action in healthcare resource allocation vaccines ventilators and race
work_keys_str_mv AT zohnyh affirmativeactioninhealthcareresourceallocationvaccinesventilatorsandrace
AT daviesb affirmativeactioninhealthcareresourceallocationvaccinesventilatorsandrace
AT wilkinsond affirmativeactioninhealthcareresourceallocationvaccinesventilatorsandrace