Quiz: What Do You Know About Health Equity?

This story is part of a month-long campaign highlighting global health inequities. To learn more about how Project HOPE is promoting global health equity and how you can help, click here.

Around half the world’s population does not receive all the health services they need.

Every day, factors like cost, location, and race inhibit people from their right to receive quality health care — whether for routine checkups or in times of life-or-death emergency. For others, born in the right place, with a certain color skin, health care may always be within reach.

COVID-19 revealed many of these inequities, but they existed long before the pandemic and reach into essentially every aspect of daily life: from whether you can afford to buy medicine, to where you deliver your baby, to how far you have to travel to your nearest clinic.

What are the key determinants of health, how severe are health inequities, and who is at greatest risk? Put your awareness to the test with these true-or-false questions.

Take the Quiz

How Did You Do?

1. Health inequities are most common in low- and middle-income countries.

False. People in every country experience inequity, and the gaps can be wide and severe.

In London’s underground system, for example, each stop travelling east from Westminster represents a drop of nearly a year in life expectancy. In the U.S., Black Americans represent 13% of the population but bear the burden of almost half of all new HIV infections, while people living in Navajo Nation were three times more likely to contract COVID-19 at the peak of the pandemic — a third of whom do not have a toilet or running water.

Health inequities affect every country on earth, and the major contributor is poverty. Worldwide, children in the poorest 20% of households are over four times more likely to experience severe mental health problems than those in the highest 20%.

2. A white American will live about 3.5 years longer than a Black American born on the same day.

True. Though life expectancy for Black Americans has increased over the past five decades, they can still expect to live 3.5 fewer years than white Americans: 75 years versus 79 years on average.

The difference isn’t biological or genetic — it’s because of deeply rooted social and economic inequities that have deprived Black families of the education, employment, housing, and support that influence one’s long-term health.

3. The gap between white American and Black American infant mortality rates has only improved slightly in the past 50 years.

False. The rate has gotten marginally worse since 1968, and Black babies are twice as likely to die as white babies.

Such stark racial disparities in infant (and maternal) mortality are a reflection of systemic injustices that deny Black women the same quality care as white women. Closing the gap will mean the difference between life and death for thousands of mothers and babies in the U.S. each year.

In recognition of this inequity, the White House issued its first-ever presidential proclamation marking Black Maternal Health Week and announced initial actions to address this gap. The actions include increased investments to reduce maternal mortality, as well as implicit bias training for health care workers and additional funds for maternal obstetrics care in rural communities.

4. Whether or not you have health insurance is the best predictor of your health.

False. Health insurance is just one of many determinants of good health. But the most important factor is your zip code — the place where you live.

Housing, location, education, and public services are among top factors shaping the trajectory of one’s health — and most of these circumstances are an outcome of an important common denominator: level of income.

In many cases, wealth is health. Low income can have a domino effect on health. Poorer families have a harder time accessing necessities, like good housing and healthy food, and less control over the health threats they face.

5. Wealthy women are 20 times more likely to have a birth attended by a skilled health worker than poor women.

True. Women in the richest 20% of the global population are up to 20 times more likely to have quality care available during childbirth.

This means greater chances for survival and better odds for long-term health — for both mother and baby. Almost all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, where adequate health care is often unaffordable if not inaccessible. Closing this gap could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

6. Most deaths from noncommunicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes occur in high-income countries.

False. NCDs account for the majority of global deaths every year, and 85% of the 15 million premature deaths are in low- and middle-income countries.

People living in lower-income countries are not only more likely to be exposed to harmful health threats, such as tobacco, air pollution, or unhealthy dietary practices — they also have more limited access to treatment and care needed to manage the diseases or conditions that develop as a result.