Overview

Editor:

Toni Schofield
Behavioural and Community Health Sciences
University of Sydney NSW, Australia

Social Equity and Health alludes to several important and inter-related questions: one being the social determinants of health and the distribution of health and illness among different social groups in society; another the inequities in health and mortality as such; and third that inequities in health are caused or at least dependent on the unequal distribution of resources in our societies.

These issues are high on the international research agenda in social epidemiology and public health research, but have attracted less attention among sociologists. Still, they are closely linked to core issues in sociology, such as the interplay between social structures, individual and group-level actions and individual outcomes.

With the launch of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, which is 'charged with recommending interventions and policies to improve health and narrow health inequalities through action on social determinants', these issues are also put to the forefront of global health policy making.

This special issue of Health Sociology Review addresses many aspects of this broad area, covering substantive but also methodological issues of importance.

Table of Contents

Social Equity and Health

Editorial
Toni Schofield

Health inequity and its social determinants: A sociological commentary
Toni Schofield

Gender, equity and tobacco control
Lorraine Greaves

On the inequitable impact of universal health insurance: The experience of Bulgaria in transition
Stephanie D Short, Valentin Dimitrov Hadjiev, Zdravka Dimitrova Toneva

Educational inequalities in avoidable deaths in Norway: A population based study
Espen Dahl, Dag Hofoss, Jon Ivar Elstad

Health inequity and women's self-help groups in India: The role of caste and class
Anant Kumar

Social capital, health and electronic community in public high-rise estates: An Australian case-study
Liza Hopkins

The impact of household type on adolescent women's well-being in Kenya
Anne M Dannerbeck, Andrew Muriuki

Book Reviews

Measuring health equity in small areas: Findings from demographic surveillance systems
INDEPTH Network
Reviewed by Jeanettte Pope

Housing, fuel poverty and health: A Pan-European analysis
Jonathan Healy
Reviewed by Sharon Friel

Health and social research in multi-ethnic societies
James Y Nazroo (ed)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Reid

Reading doctors' writing: Race, politics and power in indigenous health research 1870-1969
David Piers Thomas
Reviewed by Helen Ware

Transcultural health and social care: Development of culturally competent practitioners
Irena Papadopoulos (ed)
Reviewed by Jeffrey Fuller

In our own right: Black Australian nurses stories
Sally Goold and Kerrynne Liddle (eds)
Reviewed by Lesley Barclay

Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain: The millenium survey
Christina Pantazis, David Gordon and Ruth Levitas (eds)
Reviewed by Monica Åberg Yngwe

Risky Trade: Infectious disease in the era of global trade
Ann Marie Kimball
Reviewed by Hilary Bambrick