BMJ 2000;321:1124-1128 ( 4 November )

Education and debate

International comparators and poverty and health in Europe

Based on a presentation from the Millennium Festival of Medicine

Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health, Martin Bobak, senior lecturer. 

International Centre for Health and Society, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London WC1E 6BT

Correspondence to: M Marmot M.Marmot@.ucl.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Social inequalities in health continue to be a major problem in Britain, as in other countries. Much of the focus has been on health differences among social groups within countries,1 and rightly so, as the research evidence suggests that governments can do much to reduce these inequalities.2 Another sort of health inequality, however, also demands attention: inequalities among countries. Concern is expressed, appropriately, about inequalities in health between rich developed countries and poor developing countries. Less attention has been focused on the gap in life expectancy between the countries of eastern and western Europe; by eastern Europe, we mean the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe, including the countries of the former Soviet Union.

We are conducting a programme of research that addresses two types of question: the reasons for health inequalities between the countries of eastern and western Europe and the reasons for inequalities between social groups . . . [Full text of this article]
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