Lancet
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An inverse care law persists in almost all low-income and middle-income countries, whereby socially disadvantaged people receive less, and lower-quality, health care despite having greater need. By contrast, a disproportionate care law persists in high-income countries, whereby socially disadvantaged people receive more health care, but of worse quality and insufficient quantity to meet their additional needs. ⋯ However, trade-offs sometimes exist between health policy objectives. Health-care technologies, policies, and resourcing should be subjected to distributional analysis of their equity impacts, to ensure the objective of reducing health inequalities is kept in sight.