Trends in health inequalities in 27 European countries
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Inequalities in mortality and morbidity among socioeconomic groups are a highly persistent phenomenon despite having been the focus of public health policy in many countries. The United States has recently witnessed a widening of health inequalities due to rising mortality and morbidity among the lowly educated. Our study shows that, despite the financial crisis, most European countries have experienced an improvement in the health of the lowly educated in recent years. In Eastern Europe, this even represents a reversal as compared with previous decades. The 2008 financial crisis has had mixed effects without widening health inequalities. Our results suggest that European countries have been successful in avoiding an aggravation of health inequalities.
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References 40 · Cited by 311
- Authors
- Mackenbach, J. P., Valverde, J. R., Artnik, B., Bopp, M., Brønnum-Hansen, H., Deboosere, P., Kalediene, R., Kovács, K., Leinsalu, M., Martikainen, P., Menvielle, G., Regidor, E., Rychtaříková, J., Rodriguez-Sanz, M., Vineis, P., White, C., Wojtyniak, B., Hu, Y., & Nusselder, W. J.
- Affiliations
- Erasmus MC (NL)
- Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, 3015 CE Rotterdam, The Netherlands;
- University of Ljubljana (SI)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Institute of Public Health, Copenhagen University, 1165 Copenhagen, Denmark;
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE)
- Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas 44307, Lithuania;
- Hungarian Demographic Research Institute (HU)
- Södertörn University (SE)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Inserm (FR)
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES)
- Charles University (CZ)
- Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona, 08023 Barcelona, Spain;
- Public Health England (GB)
- Office for National Statistics (GB)
- Narodowy Instytut Zdrowia Publicznego PZH – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy (PL)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2018-06-04
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 25
- Pages
- 6440-6445
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC6016814
- OpenAlex
- W2806589758
- Cited by
- 311
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 42 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 4
- FWCI
- 27.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
- Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (submittedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion)
- VUBIR (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission (633666, 278511)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Employment and Welfare Studies
- Social Sciences › Health › Public Health and Social Inequalities
- Keywords
- health disparities, educational inequality in health, mortality trends, self-rated health, financial crisis, economic conditions and health, European countries, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, United States comparison
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Europe, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Self-Assessment, Socioeconomic Factors, Health Status Disparities, Healthcare Disparities, Economic Recession, Self Report, Interrupted Time Series Analysis
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