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National Level Policies

The National Level Policies section of the portal provides an overview of
the actual situation concerning actions to tackle health inequalities in the
different European countries.

This part of the portal is currently being developed, the information for the remaining countries will continuously be completed.

In addition to the national level portraits of the individual countries the
overview analysis has been conducted and its initial results have been
published in EuroHealth magazine (EuroHealth, 11:2 p.24).

Download the final 'Closing the Gap' publication: Taking Action on Health Equity.

This publication contains summaries of what each of the 21 ´Closing the Gap´ partners are doing to address health inequalities in their countries, as well as the conclusions and recommendations of this 3-year initiative.

Results of the same country

List all good practice projects of the actual country.

You are here: > National Level Policies > Overview

INTRODUCTION

One of the objectives of the project ‘Closing the Gap’ was to develop and share our knowledge on what different EU Member States are doing to tackle health inequalities.

In order to collect information concerning the approaches and existing policies at the national level, a situation analysis questionnaire has been elaborated and completed by 21 countries between 2005 and 2006. The countries include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, The Netherlands, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Latvia and the four constituent countries of the Unites Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), which have been addressed separately.

The situation analysis has mainly been completed through multi-stakeholder groups bringing together policy makers, health professionals, civil society actors, and researchers.
The situation analysis has resulted in the following pieces of work:

1. The profile of the situation regarding health inequalities in each EU Member State
2. An article ‘National policies to tackle health inequalities in Europe’ [1]
3. The publication ‘Health Inequalities: A challenge for Europe ’[2];
4. The present report, which aims to present a descriptive overview and summary of the situation in Europe regarding health inequalities policies. It includes 11 sections looking at:

• Different approaches addressing health inequalities;
• Policy focus;
• Health determinants;
• Cross - sectoral approach;
• Policies at the regional and local level;
• Database with good practices;
• The degree of public awareness on health inequalities;
• The forces behind putting health inequalities on the agenda;
• The evaluation process;
• The barriers to making health inequalities more of an important issue;
• Conclusions and recommendations.

We would like to highlight the fact that addressing health inequalities is a multi-facetted complex policy process and that the information collected through the situation analysis does not grasp all complexity behind it. The actual level of implementation of the policies and the content of specific policies in place contributing to tackle health inequalities have notably not been thoroughly addressed through these questionnaires.

>> Continue Reading

1. Approaches addressing Health Inequalities
2. Policy Focus
3. Health Determinants
4. Cross-Sectoral Approach
5. Policies at the regional/local Level
6. Database
7. Public Awareness
8. Driving Forces behind putting Health Inequalities Agenda
9. Evaluation Process
10. Barriers to making Health Inequalities an important Issue
11. Conclusions and Recommendations

References

[1] Jurczak, K; Costongs, C; Reeman,H  ‘National Policies to tackle health inequalities in Europe’ in Eurohealth, Vol.11 n. 2, 2005.
[2] Judge, K; Costongs, C; Jurczak, K  ‘Health Inequalities: A Challenge for Europe’, 2006