Establishing Social Equity in Cities: A Health Perspective
Social health inequalities are differences in health which are ‘unnecessary and avoidable but, in addition are also considered unfair and unjust’. People of working class and immigrants of poor countries have worse health and higher mortality. Women have worse self-perceived health although their life expectancy is larger than men’s. The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health concluded that social inequalities in health arise from inequalities in the conditions of daily life and the fundamental drivers that give rise to them: inequities in power, money and resources. These social and economic inequalities underpin the determinants of health—the range of interacting factors that shape health and wellbeing.
This chapter starts with reviewing the social determinants of health in urban areas; followed by a section on surveillance of health inequalities in cities including some examples. Finally, policies to tackle health inequalities in urban areas are presented with the example of URBAN HEART as a useful tool.
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