Socioeconomic status and health are closely linked across the lifecycle, from childhood, adolescence, through to older age. The conditions we are born and grow up in determine our health with those in a lower social position having worse health and wellbeing, and greater barriers to leading a healthy and fulfilling life. The current COVID-19 pandemic has brought the social gradient in health to the fore. While the pandemic has compromised the health, social and material wellbeing of young people in general, the poorest have been hit hardest.
Socioeconomic status impacts health and wellbeing in multiple ways, at multiple levels - crossing individual, social, community and structural domains. Health inequalities are driven by political and economic forces which shape the unequal distribution of power, status and material affluence through societies. Hence, addressing root causes requires attention to structural forces. Healthy and sustainable places, settings and communities, and initiatives early in the life-course to interrupt cycles of disadvantage before socio-economic patterning widens even further in adulthood, also have a role to play in reducing health inequalities.
Despite strong evidence of the social gradient in health, and a multitude of different intervention approaches having been adopted across varying international settings, little attention has been paid to assessing equity impacts of public health interventions.
The editors of this Research Topic seek to address research that focusses on the social determinants of health and investigates how interventions work within different subgroups of the population. With the current digitalization in health, more evidence on the equity impact of interventions with digital components is also urgently needed. Alongside settings-based approaches to reduce inequality, editors are particularly interested in obtaining insight into population-level intervention approaches to address inequalities such as through natural experimental evaluations and cross-country comparisons.
Research questions might include, but are not limited to:
· Through which mechanisms are inequalities perpetuated and sustained?
· Are existing (digital) interventions equally effective for different socioeconomic groups?
· How do different public health interventions impact on inequalities? What type of public health interventions work to narrow inequalities in health?
The Topic Editors of this Research Topic are looking for articles informed by interdisciplinary approaches that address socioeconomic status and health in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood from diverse disciplines including, but not limited to, public health, sociology, psychology and cultural studies. We are interested in papers that use different research methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) to generate empirical and theoretical results, including systematic reviews.
We especially welcome submission of manuscripts that examine and discuss differential effects of interventions by socioeconomic subgroups. Additionally, we are interested in manuscripts that describe innovative approaches to this topic and draw on research conducted with diverse population groups, including those with a lower socio-economic status. We are interested in research conducted in different settings (neighborhoods, nurseries, schools, universities, etc.) and research covering different types of interventions, including digital interventions.
Socioeconomic status and health are closely linked across the lifecycle, from childhood, adolescence, through to older age. The conditions we are born and grow up in determine our health with those in a lower social position having worse health and wellbeing, and greater barriers to leading a healthy and fulfilling life. The current COVID-19 pandemic has brought the social gradient in health to the fore. While the pandemic has compromised the health, social and material wellbeing of young people in general, the poorest have been hit hardest.
Socioeconomic status impacts health and wellbeing in multiple ways, at multiple levels - crossing individual, social, community and structural domains. Health inequalities are driven by political and economic forces which shape the unequal distribution of power, status and material affluence through societies. Hence, addressing root causes requires attention to structural forces. Healthy and sustainable places, settings and communities, and initiatives early in the life-course to interrupt cycles of disadvantage before socio-economic patterning widens even further in adulthood, also have a role to play in reducing health inequalities.
Despite strong evidence of the social gradient in health, and a multitude of different intervention approaches having been adopted across varying international settings, little attention has been paid to assessing equity impacts of public health interventions.
The editors of this Research Topic seek to address research that focusses on the social determinants of health and investigates how interventions work within different subgroups of the population. With the current digitalization in health, more evidence on the equity impact of interventions with digital components is also urgently needed. Alongside settings-based approaches to reduce inequality, editors are particularly interested in obtaining insight into population-level intervention approaches to address inequalities such as through natural experimental evaluations and cross-country comparisons.
Research questions might include, but are not limited to:
· Through which mechanisms are inequalities perpetuated and sustained?
· Are existing (digital) interventions equally effective for different socioeconomic groups?
· How do different public health interventions impact on inequalities? What type of public health interventions work to narrow inequalities in health?
The Topic Editors of this Research Topic are looking for articles informed by interdisciplinary approaches that address socioeconomic status and health in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood from diverse disciplines including, but not limited to, public health, sociology, psychology and cultural studies. We are interested in papers that use different research methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) to generate empirical and theoretical results, including systematic reviews.
We especially welcome submission of manuscripts that examine and discuss differential effects of interventions by socioeconomic subgroups. Additionally, we are interested in manuscripts that describe innovative approaches to this topic and draw on research conducted with diverse population groups, including those with a lower socio-economic status. We are interested in research conducted in different settings (neighborhoods, nurseries, schools, universities, etc.) and research covering different types of interventions, including digital interventions.
