Health inequalities and public health practice

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139059442.022

15 - Health inequalities and public health practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012

Chrissie Pickin and

Jennie Popay

Edited by

Stephen Gillam ,

Jan Yates and

Padmanabhan Badrinath

Show author details

Stephen Gillam: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Jan Yates: Affiliation:
East of England Strategic Health Authority
Padmanabhan Badrinath: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

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Summary

Key points

Health and well-being shows a strong and consistent social gradient.
Socio-economic inequalities in health are widespread in all countries.
They are caused by the unequal distribution of the social determinants of health such as power, income, goods and services and the impact this has on conditions of daily life.
At the individual level, the social determinants of health differentially affect people’s abilities, or what Armartya Sen has called ‘capabilities’, to lead a flourishing life.
They affect individuals across their life course with prenatal and early-life influences having a sustained impact on people’s health experience later in life.
Tackling health inequalities requires action at multiple levels involving many agencies with government playing a pivotal role.
Resisting the tendency for policy to focus predominantly on individual behaviour change – what has been called lifestyle drift – is important.
Successfully tackling health inequalities challenges public health practice and calls for a new approach to governance, partnership, leadership and accountability

What are health inequalities?

That my health is better or worse than yours does not necessarily indicate the presence of health inequalities. According to the Global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, which reported to the World Health Organization in 2008, the term ‘health inequality’ refers to differences between groups or populations defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically’ that are ‘unfair and avoidable or remedial’ rather than to any innate differences between these groups [1]. Statistics used to quantify health inequalities are discussed in Chapter 4 (and see the Internet Companion).

Type: Chapter
Information: Essential Public Health
Theory and Practice
, pp. 257 - 272

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139059442.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2012

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