The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?

Since 2008, Western countries are going through a deep economic crisis whose health impacts seem to be fundamentally counter-cyclical: when economic conditions worsen, so does health, and mortality tends to rise. While a growing number of studies have presented evidence on the effect of crises on th...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Bacigalupe de la Hera, Amaia, Escolar Pujolar, Antonio
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2014
País:España
Recursos:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositório:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/16322
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/16322
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:economic crisis
health inequalities
socioeconomic inequalities
welfare states
mortality
recession
Findland
period
Japan
men
morbidity
trends
HEALTH POLICY AND SERVICES
PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
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spelling The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?Bacigalupe de la Hera, AmaiaEscolar Pujolar, Antonioeconomic crisishealth inequalitiessocioeconomic inequalitieswelfare statesmortalityrecessionFindlandperiodJapanmenmorbiditytrendsHEALTH POLICY AND SERVICESPUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTHSince 2008, Western countries are going through a deep economic crisis whose health impacts seem to be fundamentally counter-cyclical: when economic conditions worsen, so does health, and mortality tends to rise. While a growing number of studies have presented evidence on the effect of crises on the average population health, a largely neglected aspect of research is the impact of crises and the related political responses on social inequalities in health, even if the negative consequences of the crises are primarily borne by the most disadvantaged populations. This commentary will reflect on the results of the studies that have analyzed the effect of economic crises on social inequalities in health up to 2013. With some exceptions, the studies show an increase in health inequalities during crises, especially during the Southeast Asian and Japanese crises and the Soviet Union crisis, although it is not always evident for both sexes or all health or socioeconomic variables. In the Nordic countries during the nineties, a clear worsening of health equity did not occur. Results about the impacts of the current economic recession on health equity are still inconsistent. Some of the factors that could explain this variability in results are the role of welfare state policies, the diversity of time periods used in the analyses, the heterogeneity of socioeconomic and health variables considered, the changes in the socioeconomic profile of the groups under comparison in times of crises, and the type of measures used to analyze the magnitude of social inequalities in health. Social epidemiology should further collaborate with other disciplines to help produce more accurate and useful evidence about the relationship between crises and health equity.Biomed Central201520152014info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/16322reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigacióninstname:Universidad del País VascoIngléshttp://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/52/abstractinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess© 2014 Bacigalupe and Escolar-Pujolar; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise statedoai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/163222026-06-18T09:23:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
title The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
spellingShingle The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
Bacigalupe de la Hera, Amaia
economic crisis
health inequalities
socioeconomic inequalities
welfare states
mortality
recession
Findland
period
Japan
men
morbidity
trends
HEALTH POLICY AND SERVICES
PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
title_short The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
title_full The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
title_fullStr The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
title_full_unstemmed The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
title_sort The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Bacigalupe de la Hera, Amaia
Escolar Pujolar, Antonio
author Bacigalupe de la Hera, Amaia
author_facet Bacigalupe de la Hera, Amaia
Escolar Pujolar, Antonio
author_role author
author2 Escolar Pujolar, Antonio
author2_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv economic crisis
health inequalities
socioeconomic inequalities
welfare states
mortality
recession
Findland
period
Japan
men
morbidity
trends
HEALTH POLICY AND SERVICES
PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
topic economic crisis
health inequalities
socioeconomic inequalities
welfare states
mortality
recession
Findland
period
Japan
men
morbidity
trends
HEALTH POLICY AND SERVICES
PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
description Since 2008, Western countries are going through a deep economic crisis whose health impacts seem to be fundamentally counter-cyclical: when economic conditions worsen, so does health, and mortality tends to rise. While a growing number of studies have presented evidence on the effect of crises on the average population health, a largely neglected aspect of research is the impact of crises and the related political responses on social inequalities in health, even if the negative consequences of the crises are primarily borne by the most disadvantaged populations. This commentary will reflect on the results of the studies that have analyzed the effect of economic crises on social inequalities in health up to 2013. With some exceptions, the studies show an increase in health inequalities during crises, especially during the Southeast Asian and Japanese crises and the Soviet Union crisis, although it is not always evident for both sexes or all health or socioeconomic variables. In the Nordic countries during the nineties, a clear worsening of health equity did not occur. Results about the impacts of the current economic recession on health equity are still inconsistent. Some of the factors that could explain this variability in results are the role of welfare state policies, the diversity of time periods used in the analyses, the heterogeneity of socioeconomic and health variables considered, the changes in the socioeconomic profile of the groups under comparison in times of crises, and the type of measures used to analyze the magnitude of social inequalities in health. Social epidemiology should further collaborate with other disciplines to help produce more accurate and useful evidence about the relationship between crises and health equity.
publishDate 2014
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2014
2015
2015
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
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dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10810/16322
url http://hdl.handle.net/10810/16322
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/52/abstract
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Biomed Central
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Biomed Central
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
instname:Universidad del País Vasco
instname_str Universidad del País Vasco
reponame_str Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
collection Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
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