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Sammanfattning

The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, published in 2008, calls for closing the social gap in health within a generation. In order to achieve this goal, a number of dilemmas have to be solved. In spite of well-developed welfare policies, the relative social differences in health during recent decades increased more in the Nordic countries compared to other parts of Western Europe and Southern Europe. There is no obvious explanation. The development in Great Britain in the period 1997-2010 is worth considering. In the beginning of the period, the government launched an extensive programme aimed at reducing social inequalities in health. Yet both relative and absolute social health inequalities increased. One explanation might be that the social stratification of health is related to the individuals’ total access to resources, often named "the fundamental cause". The review demonstrates that knowledge of effective measures is often inadequate.

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