Country Profile

Finland’s emphasis on citizen equality and on accessible and high quality welfare services has a long tradition. Just like Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Finland is referred to as a Nordic welfare state. The value of Gini coefficient is 0.269 (where 0 = perfect equality and 1 = perfect inequality) according to the Human Development Report 2004.

Health inequality issues are well integrated into the health programme, and it has been on the political agenda since the 1980s. The term “health inequalities” is well understood by professionals and academics, however it is not part of the general population's conciousness.

The background information for this entry was collected by the Finnish project partner - Marita Sihto of STAKES. The following persons also contributed either by participating in the roundtable discussion or by providing their comments independently:

• Hannele Palosuo - STAKES
• Seppo Koskinen - Finnish National Public Health Institute
• Ilmo Keskimäki - STAKES
• Eila Linnanmäki - Finnish National Public Health Institute
• Ritva Prättälä - Finnish National Public Health Institute
• Kaija Tuomi - Finnish Institute of Occupational Health

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Policies, strategies and other documents

This section provides the key documents on health inequalities published on a national level in Finland in the  past decade.

Tools and resources

In this section main tools used to implement and monitor national policies in the field of health inequalities are listed.

Key Actors

In this section key actors that are in a position to have an impact on health inequalities policies, such as ministries, state agencies, universities and/or independent institutes are listed.

National database of good practice

Please click here to learn about the databases where you can find a collection of good practices aiming at reducing health inequalities collected in Finland.