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

• Lecture Powerpoint with notes week 3

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?