Recent advances: International perspectives on health inequalities and policy

doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7286.591

BMJ 2001;322:591-594 ( 10 March )

Clinical review

Recent advances

International perspectives on health inequalities and policy

David A Leon, professor of epidemiology ^a, Gill Walt, professor of international health policy ^a, Lucy Gilson, associate professor in health economics ^b.

^a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, ^b Centre for Health Policy, University of Witwatersrand, PO Box 1038, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa

Correspondence to: D A Leon d.leon@lshtm.ac.uk

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

Inequalities and inequities in health have long been central to the concerns of public health. Governments in several countries,including the United Kingdom, have recently shown renewed interestin tackling these issues.¹ Concerted attempts have also beenmade to push them up the global health policy agenda,^2-4 andat the same time international agencies and donors are givingpriority to efforts to reduce poverty. In this article we providean overview of the current debates around inequity, inequalities,poverty, and health, drawing together current international understandingsof theproblem.

Poverty and health: powerful connection

Although targeting "the poor" is clearly important, inequalities and inequities in health are not only about the plight ofthe most deprived in each society. In many low income countries,over half the population may be living in poverty and those whoare not will still be living in circumstances that contributeto the poor health of the country as a . . . [Full text of this article]

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