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ABSTRACT
Ten years after the August 2008 release of the report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, it is important to reflect on the fate of its recommendations for reducing ‘health inequity’. The article describes some key developments in the decade, notably in understanding the etiology of health inequalities, and then juxtaposes a hopeful comparison with of an earlier (1987) UN Commission on Environment and Development with a sceptical view based on the expanding social science literature on the politics of economic inequality.
Acknowledgements
The first draft of this commentary was completed during a visiting professorship at l’institut de recherche en santé publique, l’Université de Montréal in March, 2018. Many thanks to Prof. Louise Potvin and colleagues for their hospitality.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Supplemental Material
Supplementary material for this article can be accessed here
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. The Commission defined health equity with reference to ‘systematic differences in health [that] are judged to be avoidable by reasonable action’. Whilst this definition invites debate about what might constitute reasonable action, there is widespread agreement on the distinction between health equity and the strictly descriptive terminology of health inequalities or health disparities.