[health-vn] Linking Political Systems and Priorities to the Magnitude of Health Inequities

[Vern Weitzel]

Subject: 	[EQ] Linking Political Systems and Priorities to the Magnitude
of Health Inequities
Date: 	Thu, 28 May 2009 09:18:26 -0400
From: 	Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at PAHO.ORG>
Reply-To: 	Equity, Health & Human Development <EQUIDAD at LISTSERV.PAHO.ORG>
To: 	EQUIDAD at LISTSERV.PAHO.ORG



**Epi + demos + cracy:
Linking Political Systems and Priorities to the Magnitude of Health
Inequities
Evidence, Gaps, and a Research Agenda**

Jason Beckfield; Nancy Krieger, Professor, Dept of Society, Human
Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health

*Epidemiologic Reviews 2009; doi: 10.1093/epirev/mxp002 - May 27, 2009.*



“…A new focus within both social epidemiology and political sociology
investigates how political systems and priorities shape health inequities.
To advance—and better integrate—research on political determinants of
health inequities, the authors conducted a systematic search of the ISI
Web of Knowledge and PubMed databases and identified 45 studies,
commencing in 1992, that explicitly and empirically tested, in relation
to an a priori political hypothesis, for either
1) changes in the magnitude of health inequities or
2) significant cross-national differences in the magnitude of health
inequities.



Overall, 84% of the studies focused on the global North, and all
clustered around 4 political factors:
1) the transition to a capitalist economy;
2) neoliberal restructuring;
3) welfare states; and
4) political incorporation of subordinated racial/ethnic, indigenous,
and gender groups.



The evidence suggested that the first 2 factors probably increase health
inequities, the third is inconsistently related, and the fourth helps
reduce them. In this review, the authors critically summarize these
studies’ findings, consider methodological limitations, and propose a
research agenda—with careful attention to spatiotemporal scale, level,
time frame (e.g., life course, historical generation), choice of health
outcomes, inclusion of polities, and specification of political
mechanisms—to address the enormous gaps in knowledge that were identified….”



*Free-access links to the online article:*


Abstract:
http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/mxp002?ijkey=xaXqimZNzdGpbSc&keytype=ref 



Full Text:
http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/mxp002?ijkey=xaXqimZNzdGpbSc&keytype=ref 



PDF:
http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/mxp002?ijkey=xaXqimZNzdGpbSc&keytype=ref