Politics and health

Since Virchow's seminal work, in which medicine was first proposed as a political science,2 politics has often been referred to in the medical literature, although mostly at a rhetorical level.3 Studies of political epidemiology are therefore needed, with research focusing on the effects on health of the institutions derived from political power.

Some authors have tried to determine empirically whether governments can have an effect on the incidence of specific health problems. Studies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have measured the effect of Labour and Conservative governments on suicide rates.4 More recently, welfare state policies have been associated with health benefits in people from countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.5

Data are now available to enable the measurement of the global impact on health of a wide range of political and economic variables. As a result the World Health Organization commission on macroeconomics and health has produced valuable information on associations between health and wealth.6 Yet information is still lacking on the relation between the extent of freedom of a particular country and the health of its people. Each year, Freedom House, a non-profit making, independent …