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Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity
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Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Behavior, Chronic Disease and Health Promotion".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 26111

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Monica Wendel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Public Health & Information Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA
Interests: social justice; health equity; structural determinants; racial justice
Dr. Gaberiel Jones, Jr.

E-Mail
Guest Editor
School of Public Health & Information Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA
Interests: wealth & health; health economics; racial justice; social justice

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The current global context has further exposed deep social and health inequities and the structures, policies, and practices that create and maintain them. These inequities transcend a single system or discipline and influence the physical, social, economic, and political environments in which we live. In public health, our paradigm clearly identifies the role of structural and social determinants in the production of health outcomes; however, our methods and foci for interventions have not yet caught up to our etiological knowledge. As a discipline, we are only recently reckoning with our lack of action to address systemic racism as a public health issue and recognize that racism is only one -ism—one of many forms of structural marginalization that cause disproportionate suffering and death.

In order to advance social equity as a pathway to health equity, we must first move the science forward in identifying leverage points for change and intervening at the more macro-levels of social ecology. This will also require the evolution of our measures and metrics, as we shift our focus from changing individual-level behavior within an environment to transforming the factors that shape environments and reproduce inequity. This Special Issue invites theoretical manuscripts, original research papers, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses related to the advancement of health equity by addressing social inequity. We are particularly interested in manuscripts that explicitly focus on the physical, social, economic, or political environment.

Dr. Monica Wendel
Dr. Gaberiel Jones, Jr.
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • social equity
  • health equity
  • racial equity
  • structural determinants
  • root causes
  • physical environment
  • social environment
  • economic environment
  • political environment

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 1862 KiB  
Article
The Țigani Community Adaptability to Changes in Rural Romania and the COVID-19 Impact
by Mihai Voda, Andrei Murgu, Constantin Adrian Sarpe, Steven M. Graves and Calin Avram
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(20), 10622; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010622 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2231
Abstract
Romanian rural villages are struggling to survive present times when youngsters leave for a better life in the city while elders work the land like a hundred years ago. Our paper integrates human environments research with public health preparedness, presenting the Țigani (Gypsy/Roma) [...] Read more.
Romanian rural villages are struggling to survive present times when youngsters leave for a better life in the city while elders work the land like a hundred years ago. Our paper integrates human environments research with public health preparedness, presenting the Țigani (Gypsy/Roma) ethnic group from rural Romania as an example to the world. The future security of mankind will require a new understanding of the human place in its environment. That will lead to a new society, not the most powerful or intelligent, but the one that is more adaptable to changes, with sensitive and interconnected community members. Therefore, the Țigani ethnic group that fought for its rights and flourished despite unfavorable odds, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic, represents the best example for a new world that prioritizes humans, promotes health and wellbeing, facilitating innovation and transformative networks environmental integration. This research attempts to quantify the Țigani′s unique attributes that helped their communities survive and made them more adaptive to change. Always marginalized, they identified the other ethnic groups’ weaknesses to penetrate the villages and learned to use the smartphone apps to communicate, for their trades, coppersmith, metal roof tiles and drainage systems. Our research was based on Geographical Information System, Microsoft Power Bi analytics data visualization tools and statistical analysis with SPSS V20 to demonstrate what enables their flourishing and what resistance they face locally. We argue that the Țigani′s intense social cooperation, strong sense of family, community and mutual assistance helped them to fight COVID-19, generating their significant adaptability to the societal changes and their power to keep intact their cultural identity. The results show how the constant growing Țigani population changed and may change Romania′s rural environments in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
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12 pages, 293 KiB  
Article
Other Statistical Lives
by Max A. Greenberg
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(19), 10369; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910369 - 01 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1467
Abstract
While recent scholarship has considered how algorithmic risk assessment is both shaped by and impacts social inequity, public health has not adequately considered the ways that statistical risk functions in the social world. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected in interpersonal violence [...] Read more.
While recent scholarship has considered how algorithmic risk assessment is both shaped by and impacts social inequity, public health has not adequately considered the ways that statistical risk functions in the social world. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected in interpersonal violence prevention programs, this manuscript theorizes three “other lives” of statistically produced risk factors: the past lives of risk factors as quantifiable lived experience, the professional lives of risk as a practical vocabulary shaping social interactions, and the missing lives of risk as a meaningful social category for those marked as at risk. The manuscript considers how understanding these other lives of statistical risk can help public health scholars better understand barriers to social equity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
12 pages, 1089 KiB  
Article
Access to Healthcare during COVID-19
by Alicia Núñez, S. D. Sreeganga and Arkalgud Ramaprasad
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(6), 2980; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062980 - 14 Mar 2021
Cited by 122 | Viewed by 10782
Abstract
Ensuring access to healthcare is critical to prevent illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases in health systems that have deteriorated during the pandemic. This study aims to map the existing literature on healthcare access after the appearance of COVID-19 using an [...] Read more.
Ensuring access to healthcare is critical to prevent illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases in health systems that have deteriorated during the pandemic. This study aims to map the existing literature on healthcare access after the appearance of COVID-19 using an ontological framework. This will help us to formalize, standardize, visualize and assess the barriers to and drivers of access to healthcare, and how to continue working towards a more accessible health system. A total of 131 articles are included and considered for mapping in the framework. The results were also compared to the World Health Organization guidelines on maintaining essential health services to determine the overlapping and nonoverlapping areas. We showed the benefits of using ontology to promote a systematic approach to address healthcare problems of access during COVID-19 or other pandemics and set public policies. This systematic approach will provide feedback to study the existing guidelines to make them more effective, learn about the existing gaps in research, and the relationship between the two of them. These results set the foundation for the discussion of future public health policies and research in relevant areas where we might pay attention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
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24 pages, 847 KiB  
Article
Stress and Cardiometabolic Disease Risk for Indigenous Populations throughout the Lifespan
by Melissa E. Lewis, Hannah I. Volpert-Esmond, Jason F. Deen, Elizabeth Modde and Donald Warne
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(4), 1821; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041821 - 13 Feb 2021
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 6309
Abstract
Background: Indigenous people experience the greatest cardiometabolic disease disparity in the Unites States, yet high cardiometabolic disease risk factors do not fully explain the extent of the cardiometabolic disease disparity for Indigenous people. Stress, trauma, and racism occur at high rates within Indigenous [...] Read more.
Background: Indigenous people experience the greatest cardiometabolic disease disparity in the Unites States, yet high cardiometabolic disease risk factors do not fully explain the extent of the cardiometabolic disease disparity for Indigenous people. Stress, trauma, and racism occur at high rates within Indigenous communities and have not been well explored as significant contributors to cardiometabolic disease disparities despite emerging literature, and therefore will be described here. Methods: This descriptive study explores the relationship between cardiometabolic disease risks and Indigenous-specific stressors (e.g., early childhood stress and trauma, adulthood stress and trauma, and historical and intergenerational trauma) using current literature. Indigenous-specific protective factors against cardiometabolic disease are also reviewed. Results. Increasing research indicates that there is a relationship between Indigenous-specific stressful and traumatic life experiences and increased cardiometabolic disease risk. Mental health and psychophysiology play an important role in this relationship. Effective interventions to reduce cardiometabolic disease risk in Indigenous communities focus on ameliorating the negative effects of these stressors through the use of culturally specific health behaviors and activities. Conclusions: There is increasing evidence that cultural connection and enculturation are protective factors for cardiometabolic disease, and may be galvanized through Indigenous-led training, research, and policy change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
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Review

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13 pages, 880 KiB  
Review
Towards Solving Health Inequities: A Method to Identify Ideological Operation in Global Health Programs
by Hani Kim and Uros Novakovic
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(9), 4393; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094393 - 21 Apr 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2427
Abstract
The function of ideology is to naturalize and maintain unequal relations of power. Making visible how ideology operates is necessary for solving health inequities grounded in inequities of resources and power. However, discerning ideology is difficult because it operates implicitly. It is not [...] Read more.
The function of ideology is to naturalize and maintain unequal relations of power. Making visible how ideology operates is necessary for solving health inequities grounded in inequities of resources and power. However, discerning ideology is difficult because it operates implicitly. It is not necessarily explicit in one’s stated aims or beliefs. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek conceptualizes ideology as a belief in overarching unity or harmony that obfuscates immanent tension within a system. Drawing from Žižek’s conceptualization of ideology, we identify what may be considered as ‘symptoms’ of ideological practice: (1) the recurrent nature of a problem, and (2) the implicit externalization of the cause. Our aim is to illustrate a method to identify ideological operation in health programs on the basis of its symptoms, using three case studies of persistent global health problems: inequitable access to vaccines, antimicrobial resistance, and health inequities across racialized communities. Our proposed approach for identifying ideology allows one to identify ideological practices that could not be identified by particular ideological contents. It also safeguards us from an illusory search for an emancipatory content. Critiquing ideology in general reveals possibilities that are otherwise kept invisible and unimaginable, and may help us solve recalcitrant problems such as health inequities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
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Other

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6 pages, 293 KiB  
Brief Report
‘You Learn How to Hate’: Adapting a Healthy Relationship Curriculum Using a Trauma-Informed Race Equity Lens
by Shannon Guillot-Wright, Elizabeth D. Torres, Bianca Obinyan and Jeff R. Temple
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(18), 9916; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189916 - 21 Sep 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2052
Abstract
Teen dating violence is a public health concern that can lead to short- and long-term mental and physical health consequences, including depression, anxiety, risky behaviors, and unhealthy future relationships. Research shows that social and structural determinants of health, such as racism, low socio-economic [...] Read more.
Teen dating violence is a public health concern that can lead to short- and long-term mental and physical health consequences, including depression, anxiety, risky behaviors, and unhealthy future relationships. Research shows that social and structural determinants of health, such as racism, low socio-economic status, and neighborhood conditions, may predispose certain communities to violence. To better understand methods to reduce TDV among ethnically and economically diverse populations, we used a trauma-informed race equity lens to adapt an efficacious prevention program known as Fourth R. This universal program has been shown to reduce some dating violence, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors, but there remains room for improvement. Specifically, more attention to trauma and the importance of societal risk and protective factors may improve the program’s effectiveness. Thus, focus group discussions were conducted with students and we then adapted Fourth R lessons specific to trauma, racism, and discrimination. Major themes discussed are that Fourth R and other prevention programs should focus attention on social and structural issues, such as racism and discrimination. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Equity as a Pathway to Health Equity)
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