This research synthesis project (2011-2012), undertaken for the European Region of the WHO, examines global factors on social determinants of health with respect to Europe. Two major directions were examined:
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- The impact of global factors inwards on European SDH. The principal channels of influence here are considered to be the (continuing) global financial crisis/economic recession; and migration pressures and counterpressures.
- The impact of European foreign policies outwards on global factors, with effects on other countries. There are two aspects to this examination: how these outward effects pose indirect (feedback) effects on European health and SDH (the utilitarian or security argument) and how these outward effects pose direct health equity effects on third countries (the constitutive, normative or legal argument). The principal channels of influence here are considered to be trade and development/aid policies.All four of these policy-driven or responsive areas interrelate, for example, trade and development policies can increase or decrease the ‘push/pull’ factors associated with migration and its subsequent pressures and counter-pressures. Financial market liberalization treaties can enable rapid speculative financial flows with often negative health equity and financial crises effects.
Review of social determinants and the health divide in the WHO European Region: Executive Summary is available here.
Ronald Labonté
Professor and Canada Research Chair (Globalization and Health Equity)
School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa
Corinne Packer
Researcher, Globalization and Health Equity Unit, School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa.
Vivien Runnels
Researcher, Globalization and Health Equity Unit, School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa.
Arne Rückert
Researcher, Globalization and Health Equity Unit, School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa.
Meri Koivusalo
Senior researcher in National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland.
She is a medical doctor with a PhD in public health and MSc in environmental health policy. She has written and published on international and European health policies, including on trade and health.
David Stuckler
Research Director, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology
His research integrates political economy and public health. Currently, he is focusing on three areas of population health and development: 1) Macro-social and -economic determinants of health, 2) Political economy of global health and development, and 3) Comparative social welfare.
Sanjay Basu
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University
He conducts research on public health policy and planning, using methods from the fields of operations research and epidemiology. His research seeks to address social and economic determinants of health, as well as the challenges faced by public health and primary care delivery systems.
Martin McKee
Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
He is the founding director of the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, a WHO Collaborating Centre that comprises the largest team of researchers working on health and health policy in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and which he led for over a decade.
Gorik Ooms
Researcher, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
He is a lawyer, specializing in human rights, and is also adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, and executive director of the Hélène De Beir Foundation, and coordinator of the Go4Health research project.
Rachel Hammonds
Researcher, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
Her research focuses on the intersection of international human rights law, global health and development. My current focus is my thesis which explores the obstacles to advancing shared responsibility for realising the right to health for all.
Wim Van Damme
NRF SARCHI CHAIR in Health Systems, Complexity and Social Change,
School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape
Professor in Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
Focusing on International Health Policies, his fields of specialisation are health services organisation and health policy.
Gulgun Murzalieva
Health Policy Analysis Center, Kyrgyzstan.
Publications and Presentations
Schrecker, T. and Labonte R. Globalization: The global marketplace and Social Determinants of Health. In J.H. Lee & R. Sadana (eds.), Improving equity in health by addressing social determinants. Geneva: Commission on Social Determinants of Health Knowledge Networks, World Health Organization, 2011
Ruckert, A. and Labonté, R. The Financial Crisis and Global Health: The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Policy Response. Health Promotion International, 2012
Koivusalo, M., Labonté, R., and Sinclair, S. The Proposed EU-Canada Trade Agreement Raises Health Concerns in both Canada and the European Union. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2011
Labonté, R. and Schrecker, T. Globalization and social determinants of health The role of the global marketplace” (part 1 of 3), 2007
Labonté, R. and Schrecker, T. Globalization and social determinants of health The role of the global marketplace” (part 2 of 3), 2007
Labonté, R. and Schrecker, T. Globalization and social determinants of health: Promoting health equity in global governance (part 3 of 3), 2007