Transforming health systems to reduce health inequalities

Why reduce health inequalities?

It is well known that social, cultural and economic factors cause substantial inequalities in health. Should we strive to achieve a more even share of good health, beyond improving the average health status of the population? We examine four arguments for the reduction of health inequalities.1 Inequalities are unfair. Inequalities in health are undesirable to the extent that they are unfair, or...

How should interventions to reduce inequalities in health be evaluated?

OBJECTIVE The effectiveness of interventions which have been proposed or are currently in progress to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in health is largely unknown. This paper aims to develop guidelines for evaluating these interventions. APPROACH Starting from a set of general guidelines which was recently proposed by a group of experts reporting to the national Programme Committee on Socio...

Has the English strategy to reduce health inequalities failed?

England, and the United Kingdom as a whole, have a long and frustrating history of engagement with socioeconomic inequalities in health. England and Wales started systematic data collection on social class inequalities in mortality e originally based on the Registrar General’s Decennial Supplements on Occupational Mortality e before any other country. England has also lead the world in explanat...

Transforming Health Care Payment and Delivery Systems to Improve Quality and Reduce Costs

Home modification to reduce falls at a health district level: Modeling health gain, health inequalities and health costs

BACKGROUND There is some evidence that home safety assessment and modification (HSAM) is effective in reducing falls in older people. But there are various knowledge gaps, including around cost-effectiveness and also the impacts at a health district-level. METHODS AND FINDINGS A previously established Markov macro-simulation model built for the whole New Zealand (NZ) population (Pega et al 20...