Credit contraction offers opportunity to close gaps in health inequities

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2505

Published 12 November 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2505
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2505

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Credit contraction offers opportunity to close gaps in health inequities

Deborah Cohen

¹ BMJ

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

The sudden global reduction in credit may lead to opportunitiesto rethink and improve global strategies to reduce health inequities,an international conference heard last week.

Michael Marmot, chairman of the World Health Organization’scommission on social determinants of health, said, "During thecrises [the first and second world wars] there was social solidarityand the thought that we have to do things differently. The creditcrisis is an opportunity to say are we going to do things differently."He was speaking at a conference entitled Closing the Gap ina Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinantsof Health.

Professor Marmot pointed to the fact that Western governmentshad recently found hundreds of billions of dollars to supportthe banks and that the commission’s report early thisyear had put the cost of upgrading the world’s slums at$100bn.

"For one ninth of the money we put . . . [Full text of this article]

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