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IJE Advance Access published online on May 8, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/ije/dyn078
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.

Commentary: Politics and public health—some conceptual considerations concerning welfare state characteristics and public health outcomes

Olle Lundberg

Professor of Health Equity Studies and Assistant Director, Centre for Health Equity Studies, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.

E-mail: olle.lundberg@chess.su.se

Accepted 2 April 2008

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Espelt et al. have published a paper1 on differences between European welfare states and how these differences are linked to health inequalities among the older part of the population. Although many comparative studies of international variations in health inequalities have drawn conclusions about the pros and cons of different welfare state set-ups, the issue has not been properly studied. Partly, this could be due to the conceptual and methodological problems involved when one attempts to relate international variations in complex welfare state structures on the one hand with mortality, ill health or health inequalities on the other. And because of the complexity of the task, the analytical choices made when designing a study become even more crucial than in regular individual-level epidemiological studies. Examples of such choices include what kind of welfare state characteristics we believe to be of importance for public health outcomes; how data on these characteristics . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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