PHA-Exch> WHO: Global social inequalities lead to widely diverging health patterns – UN report

[Claudio Schuftan]

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/final_report/en/index.html


http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27857&Cr=WHO&Cr1=

free download


Global social inequalities lead to widely diverging health patterns – UN
report

28 August 2008 – A Japanese woman will live 42 years longer than a woman in
Lesotho, and such a staggering disparity in life expectancy is due to
inequalities in where people are born, grow up and age, the United Nations
World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report issued today.
"Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale," a commission
comprised of academics including Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, former
heads of state and health ministers said after a three-year investigation.

According to their study, entitled "Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health
Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health," biology is not
at fault for the odds of a woman in Afghanistan dying in childbirth being 1
in 8, compared to a mother in Sweden, where the risk is 1 in 17,400.

"The toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics is, in large
measure, responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do
not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible," the report noted.

Recent years have witnessed surges in global wealth, technology and living
standards, but how resources are allocated to services and
institution-building in low-income countries is key.

A nation's wealth alone does not determine the health of its population, the
Commission said, citing the examples of Cuba, Costa Rica, China and Sri
Lanka as countries which have achieved high levels of health despite
relatively low national incomes.

The report pointed to the model of Nordic countries, where resources are put
towards promoting equal benefits and services, full employment and gender
equality, as well as for curbing social exclusion.

It also highlighted some glaring inequalities in health within countries. An
indigenous Australian male can expect to live 17 years shorter than all
other men in the same country, while maternal mortality is three to four
times higher among Indonesia's poor women compared to its rich women.

To broach inequalities both within and among nations, the 13-member
Commission made three broad recommendations: to boost daily living
conditions; to address distortions in the distribution of power, money and
resources; and to understand the problem's scope.

"Health inequity really is a matter of life and death," said WHO
Director-General Margaret Chan, who was presented with the report today.

She stressed that national health systems will not trend towards equity
without "unprecedented leadership" to drive people on all fronts, not just
in the health sector.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20080829/71f681a4/attachment-0001.html>