Latest Economic inequality Stories
History abounds with examples of dramatic social change occurring when a disadvantaged group finally stands up and says "Enough!". By recognizing their inequalities, members of disadvantaged groups can mobilize and attempt to bring about change. Traditional methods of improving relations between different racial and ethnic groups have focused on creating harmony between those groups. For example, "contact theory" proposes that bringing members of opposing groups together...
Male mortality rose 42 percent from 1989 and 2002 in Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, London researchers said. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge analyzed mortality rates of men ages 15-69 in post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2002. The researchers found that mass privatization programs were associated with a rise of 12.8 percent in...
DETROIT, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today a group of health professionals, community-based organizations, elected officials and other community leaders from more than a dozen states toured neighborhoods in Detroit/Wayne County to solidify participants' understanding of how the county's history, culture and economic successes and challenges play a role in determining health status. The tour is part of the opening session of a three-day discussion to consider how to reduce health...
By Muntaner, Carles Chung, Haejoo In "Epidemiology and the Macrosocial Determinants of Health," Putnam and Galea highlight important new developments in health policy and social epidemiology. We aim, in this commentary, to enhance the issues raised by the authors while complementing their arguments with our analyses. We agree that social epidemiologists interested in health policy might be drawn more often to macrosocial analysis because political forces and health policies affecting the...
By Naumova, Elena N Cohen, Steven A Putnam and Galea challenge the epidemiological framework underlying conventional public health research. They underscore the need to address population-level macrosocial determinants of health in epidemiological studies. Studying the population-level factors that ultimately determine population health is surely essential to policy development and implementation, as public health policy is disseminated at the population level. What impedes incorporation of...
By Putnam, Sara Galea, Sandro ABSTRACT In the past two decades, public health researchers have taken renewed interest in investigating the role of social factors in health. This holds substantial promise in terms of identifying manipulable social factors that are amenable to policy intervention. Most existing empirical and conceptual epidemiologic work, however, has focused on the more proximal social determinants, such as interpersonal relations. These factors, although perhaps easier to...
By Cohen, Hillel W Reducing inequalities in health is now a major focus of urban health initiatives. Arline Geronimus has focused attention on the continuing excess mortality among African Americans and other peoples of color.1 In a related article in this issue, she further examines the reasons for this persistent inequality.2 It is impossible to have a frank discussion of inequality, let alone devote an entire issue of the Journal to urban health, without confronting the continuing blight...
By PETER ELSON IT ALWAYS astonishes me that in this tiny fogbound island built on a rocky outcrop of coal, there should be such a range of accents. Commuting eastwards by train from Liverpool the change in voices and, indeed, attitudes they embody always comes as a surprise. But the divisions run far deeper than that. Social inequalities create an astonishing difference in life expectancy for people who live just a few miles apart in many of our cities. The low, probable age of death for...
By James Macintyre People are dying "on a grand scale" around the world because of social injustice brought about by a "toxic" combination of bad policies, politics and economics, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday. Avoidable health problems caused by social factors - as opposed to biology and genetics - are causing large-scale health inequalities in the UK, the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health has found after a three-year study. Evidence showed that a...
By DAVID A MITTELL Jr THE ALLEGED, and denied, pregnancy pact by as many as 17 girls at Gloucester (Mass.) High School is as good a case as any to illustrate the importance of good public schools. Bungling politicians and the media's pernicious exploitation of girls below the age of consent is for another column. The deeper lesson I take from this affair is that, on its own, civilization doesn't replicate itself. Every teenage child is an unmarked slate that vastly different things can be...
