Social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities in European cities: a scoping review

Background: Health inequalities can be tackled with appropriate health and social policies, involving all community groups and governments, from local to global. The objective of this study was to carry out a scoping review on social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pons i Vigués, Mariona, Díez, Elia, Morrison Esteve, Joana, 1977-, Salas Nicás, Sergio, Hoffmann, Rasmus, Burström, Bo, Dijk, Jitse P van, Borrell i Thió, Carme
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/23230
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/23230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-198
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Salut -- Desigualtats regionals
Política social -- Unió Europea, Països de la
Health inequalities
Public policies
Interventions
Cities
Urban health
Scoping review
Descripción
Sumario:Background: Health inequalities can be tackled with appropriate health and social policies, involving all community groups and governments, from local to global. The objective of this study was to carry out a scoping review on social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities in European cities published in scientific journals. Methods: Scoping review. The search was done in “PubMed” and the “Sociological Abstracts” database and was limited to articles published between 1995 and 2011. The inclusion criteria were: interventions had to take place in European cities and they had to state the reduction of health inequalities among their objectives. Results: A total of 54 papers were included, of which 35.2% used an experimental design, and 74.1% were carried out in the United Kingdom. The whole city was the setting in 27.8% of them and 44.4% were based on promoting healthy behaviours. Adults and children were the most frequent target population and half of the interventions had a universal approach and the other half a selective one. Half of the interventions were evaluated and showed positive results. Conclusions: Although health behaviours are not the main determinants of health inequalities, the majority of the selected documents were based on evaluations of interventions focusing on them.