Public HealthSocial determinants of health inequalities
Section snippets
Inequalities in health between and within countries: poverty and inequality
A catastrophe on the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami rightly focuses attention on the susceptibility of poor and vulnerable populations to natural disasters. It is no less important to keep on the agenda the more enduring problem of inequalities in health among countries.
Social determinants: poverty, inequality, and the causes of the causes
In consulting widely in developing the plan for the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, a common question was: “What's new? We know that poverty is bad for health. Does that need a Commission?”
It is not difficult to understand how poverty in the form of material deprivation—dirty water, poor nutrition—allied to lack of quality medical care can account for the tragically foreshortened lives of people in Sierra Leone. Such understanding is insufficient in two important ways. First, it
Action is possible and necessary
A review of policies in European countries identified several that took action on the social determinants of health.30 Although the reason for the policies was not necessarily to improve health they were nevertheless relevant to health: taxation and tax credits, old-age pensions, sickness or rehabilitation benefits, maternity or child benefits, unemployment benefits, housing policies, labour markets, communities, and care facilities.
In Sweden, the new strategy for public health is “to create
Meeting human needs
Two linked themes provide the rationale for the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. First, there is no choice. If the major determinants of health are social, so must be the remedies. Treating existing disease is urgent and will always receive high priority but should not be to the exclusion of taking action on the underlying social determinants of health. Disease control, properly planned and directed, has a good history, but so too does social and economic development in combating
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