Health, Disability and the Capability Approach

This book focuses on two areas of substantial and growing importance to the human development and capability approach: health and disability. The research on disability, health and the capability approach has been diverse in the topics it covers, and the conceptual frameworks and methodologies it uses, beginning over a decade and a half ago in health and more than a decade ago in disability. This book shares a set of contributions in these two areas: the first set of chapters focusing on disability; and the second set focusing on health and the health capability paradigm (HCP), in particular. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities.

Sophie Mitra is Professor in the Department of Economics at Fordham University, New York City, USA. Her research interests centre on development economics, disability and applied microeconomics. She is co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development series, and is also a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association and a senior research associate at the Center for International Policy Studies.

Jennifer Prah Ruger is the Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and the Perelman School of Medicine. She is also the Director of the Master of Science in Social Policy Program, inaugural Associate Dean for Global Studies, and Faculty Chair at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy.