Health and Socio-economic Position: A Commentary.

This Special Issue focuses on health variations contingent on socio-economic position. Among the numerous reasons why health psychologists should attend to such variations are their pervasiveness, their magnitude and their continuation into better-off social groups. The latter raises the possibility that psychosocial factors may be involved. Recent data revealing that socio-economic health inequalities have increased in recent years, in parallel with increasing income inequalities in countries such as the UK and USA, provide further reason. Understanding the underlying physical, behavioural and psychosocial mechanisms is clearly an important research mission. However, effective intervention will require structural approaches that directly counter socio-economic disparity.