Equity and the consideration of the differential impacts of public policy within populations are core values of health impact assessment. A recent paper setting out the results of the government’s consultation exercise on tackling health inequalities argues for health impact assessment to be used as a mechanism to bring about reductions in health inequalities. However, we would contend that mos...

BACKGROUND In all countries people of lower socioeconomic status evaluate their health more poorly. Yet in reporting overall health, individuals consider multiple domains that comprise their perceived health state. Considered alone, overall measures of self-reported health mask differences in the domains of health. The aim of this study is to compare and assess socioeconomic inequalities in eac...

Gender-based inequalities in health have been frequently documented. This paper examines the extent to which these inequalities reflect the different social experiences and conditions of men's and women's lives. We address four specific questions. Are there gender differences in mental and physical health? What is the relative importance of the structural, behavioural and psychosocial determina...

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 wide...

The aim of this study is to map the awareness of gender, socioeconomic, immigrant and ethnic health inequalities in health at schools, maternal health and traffic injury health prevention programs. The study was conducted in the 19 health descentralized areas in Spain, 17 autonomous community (ACs) and the 2 autonomous cities (ACities). The data were collected from May 2008 to January 2009. The...

Environmental health inequalities refer to health hazards disproportionately or unfairly distributed among the most vulnerable social groups, which are generally the most discriminated, poor populations and minorities affected by environmental risks. Although it has been known for a long time that health and disease are socially determined, only recently has this idea been incorporated into the...

BACKGROUND India faces an acute shortage of health personnel. Together with inequalities in distribution of health workers, this shortfall impedes progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The aim of this study was to assess health-workforce distribution, identify inequalities in health-worker provision and estimate the impact of this maldistribution on key health outcom...

Abstract Context Lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to live in contaminated environments. This may partly explain socioeconomic health inequalities. Aims Does noise nuisance contribute to socio-economic inequalities in subjective health? Method This research is based on the last Belgian census data carried out in 2001. We work on a 10% sample of the Belgian population. The data are proc...

Understanding social inequalities in health is of great importance; it provides the conceptual frame for investigating the social factors that affect health, together with empirical evidence for improving population health. Individual and socioeconomic data, disease related conditions and self rated health (SRH) ratings were collected from a representative sample of 1,000 participants in order ...

Welfare states are important determinants of health. Comparative social epidemiology has almost invariably concluded that population health is enhanced by the relatively generous and universal welfare provision of the Scandinavian countries. However, most international studies of socioeconomic inequalities in health have thrown up something of a public health 'puzzle' as the Scandinavian welfar...