Causal Fairness in Healthcare

Every month, ETAI will be sharing a term or concept of the month that is related to ethical issues in biomedical research. The Term of the Month is part of our module's milestones relating to engagement and reflection on ethics with the AI-READI team.

Term of March 2024: Causal Fairness in Healthcare

Causal fairness in healthcare refers to an ethical and methodological approach aimed at addressing disparities and ensuring equity in healthcare outcomes by focusing on the underlying causal relationships between interventions and health outcomes. It involves identifying and understanding the causal factors that contribute to differential health outcomes among individuals or populations, including social determinants of health, environmental factors, and structural inequalities. Causal fairness emphasizes the importance of considering not only statistical parity but also the causal mechanisms that lead to healthcare disparities, with the goal of designing interventions and policies that target these root causes to promote fairness and equity in healthcare delivery and outcomes.