Organizational justice theory (Colquitt, 2001) in healthcare systems and services (e.g., Perez-Arechaederra et al., 2013) refers to fairness and fair treatment across encounters that patients have within a healthcare system. Four dimensions of justice exist based on facts, situations, other individuals, behaviors, and processes that contribute to patients’ judgments of whether or not they have been fairly treated.
 
First, distributive justice refers to the fair allocation of resources such as services and subsequent distribution of results such as health outcomes. In health care, fairness may be understood as allocation of procedures on the basis of need, equality, or other “deservingness” criteria. Second, procedural justice refers to fairness in the process by which decisions are made, such as which patients receive a referral to specialty services. Third, interactional (sometimes referred to as interpersonal) justice refers to fairness in treatment by those delivering resources, including patients’ perceptions of their providers’ demeanor during treatment delivery and whether they were treated with respect and absence of prejudice. Finally, informational justice, refers to the perception that information received along the care continuum was adequate, correct, and sufficient.
 
Informational justice provides an opportunity to examine fairness in information conveyed on what resources exist, how and why resources were distributed as they were, and provider communication. We situate our research questions within these domains of justice, as the REACH Lab is committed to pursuing health equity due to its implications for social justice.