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Abstract
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From its historical beginnings, research on social inequalities in health has been marked by a commitment to reducing health inequalities through political action.
In his foundational study of the conditions of the British working class, Friedrich Engels [1] wrote that placing ‘workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long’ should be considered as ‘much a death by violence as that by the sword or the bullet’. During the same period, pioneer public health researcher Rudolf Virchow argued for the systematic study of the impact of social conditions on health. ‘Medical statistics will be our standard of measurement’, Virchow [2] wrote. ‘We will weigh life for life and see where the dead lie thicker among the workers or among the privileged’.
More than a century later, the words of Virchow and Engels still resonate. Systematic socio-economic inequalities in health have been documented in all countries across the globe, and remain a pressing political issue [3]. As this special issue on social inequalities in health and their determinants (HI) research remains vital and productive. Furthermore, it remains an essentially activist research field, with the majority of scholars committed to the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities [4].
During the last decades, researchers have moved from describing and explaining health inequalities to proposing active interventions aimed at their reduction [5]. During the same period, policies seeking to reduce health inequalities have been implemented in several European countries. Among these countries is Norway, where the 10-year National Strategy to Reduce Social Inequalities in Health was implemented in 2007. In this editorial, we will suggest how policy-oriented health inequality research can move forward, using the Norwegian experience in reducing health inequalities as an example...
Language: en |