Social differences and population health.

Overview

The existence of differences between the population health in industrially developed countries and that in less developed countries is general knowledge. However, there also exist differences in the population health of countries of the same level of development. And finally, there is differentiated the health of the population within one country. Namely the latter case is the subject of the present communication. The author justifies the motives for such research and points out the difficulties it faces. Explained are basic socioeconomic terms and presented are the causal relations that exist between social factors and population health. In this connection attention is called to problems that may lead to biased results in the modeling of such relations. In conclusion the author summarizes contemporaty views on these problems and presents the major factors in the interplay of socio-economic standing and health.

Key words:
horizontal and vertical equity; social standing; level of health; risk factors