b'FindingEquity DEFINITION:Health equity: Equity is the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are dened socially, economically, demographically, or geographically or by other dimensions of inequality (e.g. sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation). Health is a fundamental human right. Health equity is achieved when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being.World Health OrganizationMany issues you may faceand issues facing the MS community as a wholeare related to health inequity. For example, studies have shown that individuals with disabilities are less likely to see their primary care physician regularly. Why? They have a harder time arranging transportation and physically entering the spaces nec-essary to receive this care. This is a health inequity: it is easier for nondisabled peo-ple than disabled people to access care. It is an unfair, avoidable, and remediable difference between these two groups of people.Disability is just one of the factors considered a social determinant of health. These are factors about who you are, where you live, or your economic situation that affect your ability to receive the full benefit of healthcare. Often, these factors compound one another. For example, people with disabilities in rural areas are even less likely to receive primary care than other disabled persons. Having one factor (living in a rural area with less access to disabled transportation) increases the difficulty of the other (the challenge of traveling to an appointment with a disability). Examples of Social Determinants of Health Economic Employment, income level, cost of living,medical debt, student debtEnvironmentRural or metropolitan area, housing,transportation, climate, access to recreation Education Literacy, language, vocational training, higher education Food Food security, availability of nutritiousoptions, food cultureSocial contextSupport, social integration, communityinvolvement, stress, exposure to violenceor trauma HealthcareHealth coverage, provider availability,provider qualityPersonalAge, gender, race, religion, orientation,veteran status, disability status 16'