BMJ  2005;331:186-187 (23 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7510.186

Commentary

Health inequalities and social dynamics in Europe

¹ Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden, ² Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, Södertörn University College, SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

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

Lawlor and colleagues make the valid point that health inequalities are dynamic and change over time and between countries.¹ Unexpectedly, in Estonia and Portugal they found that a high level of insulin resistance is more common among children of more highly educated parents. They ask whether this is because of the new wealth of these families, perhaps a preference for Western style "junk" food?

A well known, but often ignored, fact is that the social distribution of risk factors, disease, and mortality varies by disease entity, time period, and country. "Anomalies," or deviations from the standard pattern of poorer people having poorer health, include breast cancer and malignant melanoma. Certain risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking or obesity, may previously have been more common among people who are wealthy; in some countries this is still so. Studies from several countries suggest that as coronary heart disease became more . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Association of socioeconomic position with insulin resistance among children from Denmark, Estonia, and Portugal: cross sectional study

Debbie A Lawlor, Maarike Harro, Niels Wedderkopp, Lars Bo Andersen, Luis B Sardinha, Chris J Riddoch, Angie S Page, Sigmund A Anderssen, Karsten Froberg, David Stansbie, and George Davey Smith
BMJ 2005 331: 183. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Cooper, R, Lucke, J, Lawlor, D A, Mishra, G, Chang, J-H, Ebrahim, S, Kuh, D, Dobson, A (2008). Socioeconomic position and hysterectomy: a cross-cohort comparison of women in Australia and Great Britain. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 62: 1057-1063 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Lawlor, D. A., Tooth, L., Lee, C., Dobson, A. (2005). A comparison of the association between socioeconomic position and cardiovascular disease risk factors in three age cohorts of Australian women: findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. J Public Health (Oxf) 27: 378-387 [Abstract] [Full text]  

Online poll

Find out more here>> and here>>