A Decade of Equity: A Selection of Recent Bibliography on Equity and Social Determinants of Health

Equity in health has become a central issue. However, equity can mean different things to different people. Moreover, the principles underlying its definition and conceptualization may vary according to economic, medical, philosophical, political, ethical and other considerations. During the last decades, the literature on health equity has known an exponential increase. Although the majority of publications are produced in developed countries, the part devoted to developing countries is rapidly increasing

This chapter is dedicated to a selection of recent papers published on equity and social determinants underlying it. Our intention is not to give an exhaustive panorama of all papers which dealt with the theme of equity, rather we have selected some of the papers that could help the reader to easily get an overview of the multidimensional aspects of equity as illustrated by the large number of publications dealing with definitions and concepts of equity, the difference between inequalities and inequities, inequity in access to health services and health status, and many other aspects.

For each paper cited, we have tried to summarise the method used, the main results and the conclusion. When a detailed abstract was available, we have used it in a slightly different and concise form.

The papers reviewed were grouped into sub topics:

1. Definitions and Concepts, 2. Social determinants of Health, 3. Diseases and equity, 4. Equity and children health, 5. Maternal health and violence, 6. Geographic disparity, 7. Migrants and heath equity, 8. Equity and finance.