Understanding Health Inequalities

Introduction

1. The challenge of health inequalities
Hilary Graham

Part I: Health inequalities: understanding patterns over time and place

2. Life course influences on children’s futures
Catherine Law

3. Life course influences on health at older ages
Mel Bartley & David Blane

4. Geographical inequalities in health over the last century
Danny Dorling & Bethan Thomas

5. Neighbourhoods, social class and health
Sally Macintyre & Anne Ellaway

Part II: Health inequalities: understanding intersections

6. Religion, ethnicity and health inequalities
James Nazroo & Saffron Karlsen

7. Negotiating ethnic identities and health
Karl Atkin

8. Gender and socioeconomic inequalities in mortality and health behaviours: an overview
Kate Hunt and G David Batty

9. Class cultures and the meaning of young motherhood
Naomi Rudoe and Rachel Thomson

Part III: Health inequalities: understanding policy impacts

10. Unequal consequences of ill-health: researching the role of public policy
Margaret Whitehead, Barbara Hanratty and Bo Burström

11. Tackling health inequalities: the scope for policy
Hilary Graham

"Thoroughly updated and revised, this new edition of Understanding Health Inequalities, edited by Hilary Graham, remains a welcome and timely contribution. Replete with thoughtful essays on health inequities analyzed in relation to societal structure, social position and geography ... the volume provides important insights into how class, racial/ethnic, gender, and spatial health inequities are produced - and how they can be rectified. The world economic crisis launched by the implosion of unregulated financial markets in the fall of 2008 only serves to underscore the volume's central conclusion: that government regulation and intervention, premised on a commitment to equity, is essential for tackling health inequalities. Health professionals, students, and any and all working for healthy and sustainable ways of living will benefit from this collection."
Nancy Krieger, Harvard School of Public Health, USA

Understanding Health Inequalities second edition provides an accessible and engaging exploration of why the opportunity to live a long and healthy life remains profoundly unequal.

Hilary Graham and her contributors outline the enduring link between people’s socioeconomic circumstances and their health and tackle questions at the forefront of research and policy on health inequalities. These include:

• How health is influenced by circumstances across people's lives and by the areas in which they live
• How health is simultaneously shaped by inequalities of gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic position
• How policies can impact on health inequalities

All the chapters have been specially written for the new edition by internationally-recognised researchers in social and health inequalities. The book provides an authoritative guide to these fields as well as presenting new research.

Contributors
Karl Atkin, Mel Bartley, G. David Batty, David Blane, Bo Burström, Danny Dorling, Anne Ellaway, Hilary Graham, Barbara Hanratty, Kate Hunt, Saffron Karlsen, Catherine Law, Sally Macintyre, James Nazroo, Naomi Rudoe, Bethan Thomas, Rachel Thomson, Margaret Whitehead