Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YD, United Kingdom.
College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Public Health. 2021 Oct;199:103-106. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2021.08.017. Epub 2021 Sep 25.
Policy recommendations, which aim to reduce health inequalities in society, often focus upon improving the incomes, working conditions and physical environments of the most deprived groups. We agree with these recommendations but argue that they are insufficient to reduce health inequalities because they fail to address the economic relationships between social groups that lead to health inequalities and which perpetuate them over time. A comprehensive programme to reduce health inequalities will require policies that address the numerous ways in which economic resources flow from poorer groups to richer groups through the design of the economy. In this commentary we describe key economic relationships between social groups that lead to inequalities, namely rent, interest, capital gains, profit, monopoly and speculation. Addressing these causes of economic inequality in recommendations to reduce health inequalities should be considered by future research in this area.
政策建议旨在减少社会中的健康不平等，这些建议通常侧重于改善最贫困群体的收入、工作条件和物质环境。我们同意这些建议，但认为这些建议还不够，因为它们没有解决导致健康不平等的社会群体之间的经济关系，而这些关系会随着时间的推移而使健康不平等持续存在。要想制定出减少健康不平等的综合性方案，就需要制定各项政策，通过经济设计解决经济资源从较贫困群体流向较富裕群体的诸多方式。在本评论中，我们描述了导致不平等的社会群体之间的一些主要经济关系，即租金、利息、资本收益、利润、垄断和投机。未来该领域的研究应考虑在减少健康不平等的建议中解决这些经济不平等的根源。
