THEORY AND METHODS
Social determinants of health: a veil that hides socioeconomic position and its relation with health
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr E Regidor
Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain; enriqueregidor{at}hotmail.com
The emergence of theoretical models of social determinants of health has added conceptual ambiguity to the understanding of social inequalities in health, as it is often not possible to clearly distinguish between socioeconomic position and these determinants. Whether the existence of social inequalities in health is based on differences in health or on differences in social determinants of health that are systematically associated with socioeconomic position, policymakers should be clearly informed of the importance of socioeconomic position for health. Thus, the following three basic requirements are proposed: to reach a consensus about the dimensions that reflect socioeconomic position; to agree about what are to be considered the social determinants of health and whether or not these determinants are a construct that can be distinguished from socioeconomic position; and finally, to establish which dimensions and measures of socioeconomic position are most appropriate for the evaluation of interventions that aim to reduce these inequalities.
Keywords: socioeconomic position; inequalities
Relevant Article
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
J Epidemiol Community Health 2006 60: 825.
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
