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A typology of actions to tackle social inequalities in health


Professor Margaret Whitehead, Division of Public Health, University of
Liverpool

J. Epidemiol. Community Health – June 2007;Volume 61, Number 6;473-478



Website: http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/61/6/473?etoc



As Mark Twain cautioned: ‘‘If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems
will be nails’’.



“…..There is a growing acknowledgement that many countries face serious
social inequalities in health, identified as one of the greatest challenges
to public health today. ‘‘Social inequalities in health’’ in this article
are defined as systematic differences in health between different
socioeconomic groups within a society. As they are socially produced, they
are potentially avoidable and are widely considered unacceptable in a
civilized society.



This paper uses the British convention of referring to ‘‘inequalities in
health’’, which commonly has the same meaning in the UKas the term
‘‘inequities in health’’. That is, ‘‘inequalities’’ in the British
context—and increasingly also across Europe—carries the same connotations
of unfairness and injustice as the term ‘‘inequities’’.



Previous articles in this series have dealt with how to measure health
inequalities and socioeconomic position, together with the associated
concepts. The central question remains: what can be done about these social
inequalities in health? A growing number of countries are wrestling with
this question and devising policies and interventions in attempts to tackle
the challenge.



This article organises some of the most prominent types of actions that
have been devised in this field into a typology. The aim is to help broaden
the understanding of the range of different interventions available and
their potential effectiveness for the task in hand, and to avoid the
tendency to focus on one type of intervention neglecting the others. …..”



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