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Review
. 2025 Mar 11;4(1):e70040.
doi: 10.1002/puh2.70040. eCollection 2025 Mar.

Understanding Health Inequality, Disparity and Inequity in Africa: A Rapid Review of Concepts, Root Causes, and Strategic Solutions

Gabriel Ilerioluwa Oke  1 , Olivier Sibomana  2
Affiliations
Review

Understanding Health Inequality, Disparity and Inequity in Africa: A Rapid Review of Concepts, Root Causes, and Strategic Solutions

Gabriel Ilerioluwa Oke et al. Public Health Chall. .

Abstract

Introduction: Health inequality, disparity, and inequity are critical global health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Africa's healthcare systems have been profoundly impacted by these issues for decades, leading to severe and far-reaching consequences. This rapid review aims to explore the concepts of health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa, identify their root causes, and propose practical recommendations to address them.

Methodology: A comprehensive search was conducted across PubMed, Google Scholar, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and through manual searches on Google to identify literature on health inequalities, disparities, and inequities in Africa. Key terms, such as "Health inequality," "Health disparity," "Health inequity," "Health injustice," "Health unfairness," "Healthcare access," and "Health challenges," were employed. The identified literature was carefully reviewed, and relevant sources were selected to discuss the concepts, causes, and potential solutions to these differences in health outcomes across Africa.

Results: Although some aspects of health inequality are linked to unmodifiable factors, health disparities and inequities are often the result of preventable and modifiable factors and can be addressed through targeted efforts. The root causes of health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa include poverty, inadequate education, corruption, poor governance, geographic isolation, unsupportive environmental conditions, cultural norms, and international influences. Solutions to these differences in health outcome lie in reversing the root causes.

Conclusion: Addressing health inequality, disparity, and inequity in Africa requires a multifaceted approach, including improving education, healthcare infrastructure, and gender equality, alleviating poverty, and ensuring fair governance to achieve equitable health outcomes.

Keywords: Africa; disparity; healthcare; inequality; inequity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Gender inequalities by type of cancer: age standardized incidence rate per 100,000 individuals of Top 15 cancers in Africa, 2022. Source: International Agency for Research on Cancer; https://gco.iarc.fr/en.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Disparities in prevalence of HIV by population groups in Africa. Source: UNAIDS 2020 Global AIDS Update.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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