Connecting the dots on health inequalities – a systematic review on the social determinants of health in Portugal

International Journal for Equity in Health

Systematic Review

Julian Perelman¹  Inês Campos-Matos²  Giuliano Russo³ 

[1] Centro de Investigação em Saúde Pública, Lisbon, Portugal;Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal;Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal;Centro de Investigação em Saúde Pública, Lisbon, Portugal;Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal;Global Health and Tropical Medicine, Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal;

关键词: Portugal;    Health inequalities;    Social determinants of health;    Socioeconomic factors;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12939-016-0314-z

 received in 2015-11-23, accepted in 2016-02-01,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

IntroductionHealth inequalities are recognised as a public health issue worldwide, but only a few countries have developed national strategies to monitor and reduce them. Despite its considerable health inequalities, Portugal seems to lack a systematic strategy to tackle them, possibly due to the absence of organised evidence on the issue. We performed a systematic review that aimed to describe the available evidence on social inequalities in health in Portugal, in order to contribute towards a comprehensive and focused strategy to tackle them.MethodsWe followed the PRISMA guidelines and searched Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed for studies that looked at the association between a measure of socioeconomic status and a health outcome in the Portuguese resident population since the year 2000. We excluded health behaviours and healthcare use from our search. We performed a qualitative description of the results.ResultsSeventy-one publications were selected, all reporting observational analyses, most of them using cross-sectional data. These publications showed strong evidence for health inequalities related to education and gender, chiefly for obesity, self-rated health and mental health.ConclusionsAnalysis of the eligible publications showed that current research does not seem to have consistently covered the link between health and key Portuguese social problems. A strategy focusing on the monitoring of most prevalent diseases, most determining socioeconomic factors and vulnerable populations would be crucial to guide academic research in a country in which health inequalities are so ubiquitous and deeply rooted.RegistrationThis systematic review is not registered.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Campos-Matos et al. 2016