Understanding the construction of the social gradient in health is a major challenge in the field of social epidemiology, a branch of epidemiology that seeks to understand how society and its different forms of organization influence health at a population level. Attempting to answer these questions involves large datasets of varied heterogeneous data suggesting that Big Data approaches could be then particularly relevant to the study of social inequalities in health. Nevertheless, real challenges have to be addressed in order to make the...

Background Increasingly, the NHS is embracing the use of digital communication technology for communication between clinicians and patients. Policymakers deem digital clinical communication as presenting a solution to the capacity issues currently faced by general practice. There is some concern that these technologies may exacerbate existing inequalities in accessing health care. It is not known what impact they may have on groups who are already marginalised in their ability to access general practice. Aim To assess the potential impact of th...

A growing body of evidence shows the use of digital technologies in health—referred to as eHealth, mHealth or ‘digital health’—is improving and saving lives in low- and middle-income countries. Despite this prevalent and persistent narrative, very few studies examine its effects on health equity, gender and power dynamics. This journal supplement addresses these invisible imperatives by going beyond traditional measures of coverage, efficacy and cost-effectiveness associated with digital health interventions, to unpack different experiences of h...

The report is the result of collaboration between Ashoka and McKinsey & Company, as well as social entrepreneurs from Catalyst 2030, Co-Impact, Echoing Green, Schwab and Skoll and SystemIQ. How can systems change across the world be financed more effectively? How can change be better supported for the benefit of society? “Embracing complexity – Towards a shared understanding of funding systems change” provides donors and investors, as well as charitable initiatives and organizations, with answers to these questions. A clearly defined vision...

Background: Governments are incentivized to develop and implement health action programs focused on equity to ensure progress with effective strategies or interventions. Objective: Identify and synthesize strategies or interventions that facilitate the reduction of health inequalities. Methods: A systematic search strategy was carried out up until August 2019 in MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Elsevier), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, LILACS, Scopus, Scielo and Epistemonikos. In addition, a snowball strategy was used. Literature reviews (LRs)...

Mark Cabaj, President of the Canadian consulting company From Here to There and an Associate of Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement, worked with CFI to deliver a two-day workshop in March 2020 on Changing Systems, Power and Potential. CFI Network member Fiona McKenzie observed and synthesised the learnings, discussions and perspectives into a report which captures contributions from both presenters and participants. The result is a blend of concepts, frameworks, applications, hints and common threads that emerged about efforts to...

Over the past few months, COVID-19 has ravaged health systems and economies in countries across the world. While many would argue that a pandemic of respiratory disease was predictable, the systematic failures of the response came as a surprise. From the shortage of hospital beds and medical equipment to the gross insufficiencies in national surveillance systems, supply chains and laboratory capacity, COVID-19 has laid bare the health care limitations that ‘global north’ and ‘global south’ share. A stark set of differences, however, run across ...

Migrants are seldom included in policy discussions on the provision of health care, and in country policy reforms towards health for all. In addition, evidence on health care for migrant populations to inform and guide policy makers is limited. This Comparative Country Study (CCS) uses mixed-method approaches to analyse the extent to which two middle-income countries – Thailand and Malaysia, have culturally competent, migrant-inclusive health systems. The countries have taken different approaches to developing a migrant-inclusive health system....

The COVID-19 is disproportionally affecting the poor, minorities and a broad range of vulnerable populations, due to its inequitable spread in areas of dense population and limited mitigation capacity due to high prevalence of chronic conditions or poor access to high quality public health and medical care. Moreover, the collateral effects of the pandemic due to the global economic downturn, and social isolation and movement restriction measures, are unequally affecting those in the lowest power strata of societies. To address the challenges to...

In 2006, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a philanthropic institution dedicated to improving health and health care, embarked on four years of research and message development around the question: “how do we find a common language that will expand Americans’ views about what it means to be healthy – to include not just where health ends but also where it starts?” (p.3) The result is this readable 37-page report. In it, the authors outline their methodology, then present seven lessons for using language to frame the social determinant...

This report examines how social innovation happens in NGOs, the public sector, movements, networks and markets. It presents an analysis of the history, the theory and the process, paving a way for social innovation to play an increasingly significant role in society. Huge energies – and resources – are devoted to innovation in science and technology. But far less attention has been paid to social innovation, despite pressing needs in fields as diverse as chronic disease and climate change. This report examines the growing importance of social...

We provide a framework for health services–related researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to guide future health disparities research in areas ranging from detecting differences in health and health care to understanding the determinants that underlie disparities to ultimately designing interventions that reduce and eliminate these disparities. To do this, we identified potential selection biases and definitions of vulnerable groups when detecting disparities. The key factors to understanding disparities were multilevel determinants of h...