Social Determinants Of Health Inequalities Research Articles

Health and african-brazilian ethnicity research group (HABERG)

Since 1994, the Health and African-Brazilian Ethnicity Research Group is focused on the social determinants of health inequalities. The group was created and is directed by Isabel Cruz, RN, PhD It is based in the Medical-Surgical Nursing Department, Fluminense Federal University (RJ, Brazil). Its aims were to undertake multi-disciplinary social and health science research to advance the understanding of the social processes, particularly the racism, which underlie and mediate socio-economic inequalities in health and to advance the methodology of health inequalities research.These aims are been taking forward through two projects. The project related to the nursing diagnosis chronic low self-esteem and the nursing intervention cultural brokerage is multi-disciplinary, involving collaborators from arts (music, dance, painting, literature), economics, history, psychology, social policy and sociology. The other project is related to the nursing diagnoses and interventions to the hypertensive client and his family. Both projects have a focus on racism and socio-economic inequalities in health, addressing for example ethnic and gender inequalities which are not yet on the scientific and policy agenda of public health.Communication with the users of research has been a priority for the HABERG, which was linked regularly to over 500 users in and beyond Brazil by the NEPAE-NESEN Eletronic Newsletter which provides updates on HABERG activities, researches, and its policy implications. The information on the website (www.uff.br/nepae/NESEN.htm) provides a record of the research group activities.Publications: all HABERG newsletter articles and research reports are displayed on the website www.uff.br/nepae or www.uff.br/nepae/NESEN.htm

Teaching social inequalities in health: barriers and opportunities

This article examines some of the main threats and new opportunities encountered by teachers of social inequalities in health in contemporary academia. Focusing mostly on the recent US and European experiences, I suggest that lay world views legitimating social inequalities are often in conflict with explanations arising from social epidemiology and medical sociology. The dominance of medicine in public health, through its often implicit assumptions about the biological determinants of human behaviour, is also identified as a barrier to teaching social inequalities in health. Educational elitism, which restricts higher education to members of the upper middle class, is identified as another barrier to teaching social inequalities in health. On the other hand, teachers in this field can benefit from a recent growth of empirical studies during the last decade aimed at understanding the social determinants of health inequalities. Finally, I suggest that familiarity with current critical scholarship within public health, as well as the use of techniques developed by sociologists to teach social stratification, can be valuable resources for teaching social inequalities in health.

Why justice is good for our health: the social determinants of health inequalities.

We have known for over 150 years that an individual’s chances of life and death are patterned according to social class: the more affluent and educated people are, the longer and healthier their lives. These patterns persist even when there is universal access to health care – a fact quite surprising to those who think financial access to medical services is the primary determinant of health status. In fact, recent cross-national evidence suggests that the greater the degree of socioeconomic inequality that exists within a society, the steeper the gradient of health inequality. As a result, middle-income groups in a less equal society will have worse health than comparable or even poorer groups in a society with greater equality.