Week 3
Module: Health Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health
Lecture: Social Inequalities and Health (Part 2)
The lectures in weeks one, two and thre will introduce a number of the key theoretical and conceptual foundations to health inequalities and their social determinants including:
- Definitions of inequality and inequity, and their different dimensions and applications.
- The different ways in which social inequalities in health are measured and described
- the different meanings attributed to the concept of ‘social determinants’
- the theories that explain the social causation of health inequalities; including their interaction with other non-social factors
- The tension between individual and population-wide epidemiology / risk factor analysis
Lecture Notes and Powerpoints
Seminar
The seminar will be based on a discussion of Chapters 1 - 5 from the CSDH report. A number of cross-cutting concepts and themes that form the basis for the module will be drawn out in the discussion in the form of a number of tensions:
- Universalism versus targeting
- Comprehensive versus selective approaches
- Markets versus social control
- Individuals versus societies
- Today versus tomorrow
- Equity versus efficiency
Compulsory Readings
- Chapters 6 – 8 of the CSDH report (read it here)
- Christopher Snowdon. A theory of everything that explains nothing (read it here)
- Sanandaji N, Malm A and Sanandaji T. The Spirit Illusion a critical analysis of how The Spirit Level compares countries (read it here)
- Wilkinson R and Pickett K. Income inequality and health (read it here)
- Response to critics here: http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/docs/responses-to-all-critics.pdf
Additional Readings
- Peter Saunders Beware False Prophets: equality, the good society and The Spirit Level
- Lynch JW, Smith GD, Kaplan GA and House JS, 2000. Income inequality and mortality: importance to health of individual income, psychosocial environment, or material conditions. BMJ 2000; 320:1200–4 (read it here)
- Michael Marmot, Richard G Wilkinson, 2001. Psychosocial and material pathways in the relation between income and health: a response to Lynch et al. BMJ 2001; 322:1233–6. (read it here)
- See here: http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/publications
- Further discussion on Radio 4: The Spirit Level: the theory of everything?