Explanations for Social Inequalities in Health

Abstract

Abstract Britain’s secretary of state for health recently published her strategy for improving health in England, The Health of the Nation (Secretary of State for Health, 1992). Among the sillier responses to this publication was one along the line of, “Health is improving anyway—why do we need to take action to improve it further?” It is true that there have been dramatic across—the-board improvements in life expectancy in industrialized countries. However, two phenomena stand in stark contrast to this general trend: marked divergence in life expectancy among industrialized countries, and persistent, even widening, social inequalities in health within countries. These realities made only fleeting appearances in the British government’s health strategy. Gender, ethnic, and regional variations in mortality also persist.

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