Review article. Interventions to reduce socioeconomic health differences. A review of the international literature

Abstract

The objective of this study was to review information on evaluated interventions to reduce socioeconomic health differences (SEHD) and analyse studies to identify possible conditions for success. The analysed interventions were from published and unpublished sources. They were evaluated in terms of socioeconomic health outcomes. Ninety-eight publications on actual interventions to reduce SEHD and 31 so-called ‘grey literature’ interventions were identified. Many of the interventions described are reported to be effective. Many of the local experimental interventions, however, were not formally evaluated. Structural measures appear to be effective most often, but cannot be taken to affect all determinants. Interventions often Involve health education. This, however, only appears to be successful if providing information is combined with personal support or structural measures. Many very creative interventions to reduce SEHD have been reported. Several appear to be effective, but all address only a small aspect of health inequalities. Regrettably the lack of standardized measures and a common methodology hamper our ability to integrate and compare the results. However, all the studies show that there is room for improvement in our existing health policies to reach everyone in our population to the same degree of effectiveness.