In this article we explore systematically the different conceptions of health equity in key national health policy documents in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. We find substantial differences across the three countries in the characterization of group differences (by SES, race/ethnicity, or territory), and the theorized causes of health inequalities (socioeconomic structures versus health care system features). In all three countries, reports throughout the period alluded at least minimally to inequalities in social determinants as the underlying cause of health inequalities. However, even in the reports with the strongest attachment to this causal model, the authors stop well short of advocating the redistribution of power and resources that would likely be necessary to redress these inequalities.
Community-based psychiatric services are essential to mental health. For decades, researchers, advocates, and policy makers have presumed that expanding the supply of these services hinges on reducing the supply of hospitalbased care. Cross-national data from the World Health Organization call this presumption into question. Community and hospital psychiatry appear to be complements, not substitutes.
Some of the most immediate health effects of the 2008 economic crisis
concerned the mind, not the body. Rates of generalized anxiety, chronic
depression, and even suicide spiked in many European societies. This
viewpoint highlights the role of mental health professionals in responding
to this emergency, and argues that their sustained mobilization is necessary
to its long-term resolution.
Public financing versus care supply in general and mental health systems in selected advanced industrial economies (A) General health systems, using data on advanced economies from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development from 2014. (B) Mental health systems, using WHO data 2 from 2011 for those countries with available data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.