New methods in data linkage to tackle health inequalities
Published: 1 January 2023
Within the School of Health and Wellbeing, the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit conducts high quality research that has a real impact on reducing health inequalities both at home and across the globe.
Within the School of Health and Wellbeing, the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit conducts high quality research that has a real impact on reducing health inequalities both at home and across the globe. As the use of routine data in public health continues to expand, more data sources are becoming available, increasing avenues of research. The Inequalities in Health Programme in the Unit works to expand upon the uses that are made of routine data using innovative causal methodology, with an emphasis on their use for assessing and reducing health inequalities.
Current projects include:
- Harnessing the potential of existing data to reduce child health inequalities and improve life chances for children born into less advantaged socioeconomic circumstances
- Creating small area deprivation measures for Scotland and Brazil that can be linked to administrative data, surveys and register data to monitor inequalities and assess differential impacts of policies on more deprived areas
In addition, the Unit leads a global project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) on health inequalities in Latin America, specifically Brazil and Ecuador. Although there are many potential causes of health differences between different social groups, these are largely attributable to the social determinants of health – the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, age and die. At the same time, there are many environmental factors that can impact individual and population health, including the built environment and climate change. Such environmental considerations tend to have the most harmful impacts on the most deprived in society. To reduce the impact of these social and environmental factors, governments introduce a range of social and environmental policies targeted at addressing them.
The NIHR Unit on Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Inequalities is focusing on discovering whether these policies have any impact on health, whether they have a bigger impact on disadvantaged groups (defined by income, ethnicity, sex, geography, migrant status and deprivation), and the extent to which the health impacts have been modified by the provision and organisation of health services, particularly regarding coverage, access and quality.
First published: 1 January 2023
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