How will the financial crisis affect health?
M G Marmot, director of the International Institute for Society and Health, Ruth Bell, senior research fellow
1 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health,
BMJ Published 1 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1314
Global recession is likely to damage our health as well as our wealth, but it also offers an opportunity to build a more equitable economic model
as Michael Marmot and Ruth Bell explain in light of the G20 summit
Abstract:
“…..The financial crisis intrudes daily from the newspapers. The breakfast table is littered with quantitative easing and credit-default swaps, stimulus packages, and bank bailouts. But is there a link between the financial crisis dominating the front page and the health stories on the inside?
The Commission on Social Determinants of Health certainly believed so. Its starting point was that the economic and social features of society are closely linked to the distribution of health within and between countries.1 The social determinants of health are the circumstances of daily life—the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age—and the structural drivers of those conditions (unfair distribution of power, money, and resources). Both the conditions of daily life and the structural drivers will be influenced by the financial crisis…..”
Commentary: Look after the pennies
Andrew Jack, pharmaceuticals correspondent
1 Financial Times,
Published 1 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1380
……The economic crisis means that rather than ask for more money for health, we are going to have to be more careful how we spend it…..
“……As international political leaders left London’s G20 meeting last week, their concluding communique1 offered a few bright spots for the health of the world’s poorest, but only an indirect nod to Michael Marmot and Ruth Bell’s well timed call to highlight the dangers of the global economic crisis on health. With the global economy contracting sharply, there will certainly be an overall negative impact on health, to which the latest pledge of a fresh $1.1 trillion in lending offers only a little palliative care. Government, consumer, and philanthropic spending alike are under pressure; unemployment is rising, as is work related stress for those still with jobs (including in the health sector); and remittances are down from migrant workers, a vital source of non-official aid to those on lower incomes….”
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