Intended for healthcare professionals

Editor's Choice Editor's choice

Our unequal society

BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39140.571759.43 (Published 01 March 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:0
  1. Fiona Godlee, editor
  1. fgodlee{at}bmj.com

    Back in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was confidently asserting that there was no such thing as society, researchers ploughing the unfashionable furrow of health inequalities must have despaired of ever being heard. Things have moved on since then, though not perhaps as far as we might have hoped. There is now good evidence, some of it published in the BMJ (1999;319:953) that the healthiest and happiest societies are those with the most equal distribution of income. And compared even with a decade ago, when wider issues such as poverty and housing were excluded from discussion (BMJ 1995;311:1177), governments have become braver about embracing these social issues when talking …

    View Full Text