What makes a health movement successful? Health inequalities and the insulin pump in Chile

ABSTRACT

During the last two decades, there has been a significant reappearance of social movements as a response to social injustice, inequalities and diverse forms of discrimination. In the public health context, these movements constitute a democratic option to dampen the negative impact of health inequities on people’s lives, by placing their real health needs in the public agenda. We explore the rise of the #bombadeinsulinaalAUGE movement in Chile, which was led by patients with type 1 diabetes. In 2015, these patients demanded that Michelle Bachelet’s government incorporate the insulin pump into the universal health cover plan for diabetes. Through a qualitative approach, we analyse the repertoire of strategies undertaken by this movement to achieve its goal. We argue that the causes underlying the success of #bombadeinsulinaalAUGE stem from its ability to accommodate said repertoire in response to the political and institutional context, while creating collaborative interactions with the state. This study contributes to the understanding of the political consequences of social movements, providing insights from the Chilean context, where health movements are an emerging phenomenon. This topic is of interest to public health as social movements have the potential to transform health systems, improving the well-being of the general population.

KEYWORDS:

• Patient’s participation
• social movements
• health policy
• inequalities
• universal access to healthcare

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2019 Congress of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología (ALAS).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the DID-EE Health Research Grant at the School of Nursing, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile [Grant number FIENF1707]