38
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
3 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities in European cities: a scoping review

      research-article

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Health inequalities can be tackled with appropriate health and social policies, involving all community groups and governments, from local to global. The objective of this study was to carry out a scoping review on social and health policies or interventions to tackle health inequalities in European cities published in scientific journals.

          Methods

          Scoping review. The search was done in “PubMed” and the “Sociological Abstracts” database and was limited to articles published between 1995 and 2011. The inclusion criteria were: interventions had to take place in European cities and they had to state the reduction of health inequalities among their objectives.

          Results

          A total of 54 papers were included, of which 35.2% used an experimental design, and 74.1% were carried out in the United Kingdom. The whole city was the setting in 27.8% of them and 44.4% were based on promoting healthy behaviours. Adults and children were the most frequent target population and half of the interventions had a universal approach and the other half a selective one. Half of the interventions were evaluated and showed positive results.

          Conclusions

          Although health behaviours are not the main determinants of health inequalities, the majority of the selected documents were based on evaluations of interventions focusing on them.

          Related collections

          Most cited references69

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: found
          Is Open Access

          Scoping studies: advancing the methodology

          Background Scoping studies are an increasingly popular approach to reviewing health research evidence. In 2005, Arksey and O'Malley published the first methodological framework for conducting scoping studies. While this framework provides an excellent foundation for scoping study methodology, further clarifying and enhancing this framework will help support the consistency with which authors undertake and report scoping studies and may encourage researchers and clinicians to engage in this process. Discussion We build upon our experiences conducting three scoping studies using the Arksey and O'Malley methodology to propose recommendations that clarify and enhance each stage of the framework. Recommendations include: clarifying and linking the purpose and research question (stage one); balancing feasibility with breadth and comprehensiveness of the scoping process (stage two); using an iterative team approach to selecting studies (stage three) and extracting data (stage four); incorporating a numerical summary and qualitative thematic analysis, reporting results, and considering the implications of study findings to policy, practice, or research (stage five); and incorporating consultation with stakeholders as a required knowledge translation component of scoping study methodology (stage six). Lastly, we propose additional considerations for scoping study methodology in order to support the advancement, application and relevance of scoping studies in health research. Summary Specific recommendations to clarify and enhance this methodology are outlined for each stage of the Arksey and O'Malley framework. Continued debate and development about scoping study methodology will help to maximize the usefulness and rigor of scoping study findings within healthcare research and practice.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health in 22 European Countries

            Comparisons among countries can help to identify opportunities for the reduction of inequalities in health. We compared the magnitude of inequalities in mortality and self-assessed health among 22 countries in all parts of Europe. We obtained data on mortality according to education level and occupational class from census-based mortality studies. Deaths were classified according to cause, including common causes, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer; causes related to smoking; causes related to alcohol use; and causes amenable to medical intervention, such as tuberculosis and hypertension. Data on self-assessed health, smoking, and obesity according to education and income were obtained from health or multipurpose surveys. For each country, the association between socioeconomic status and health outcomes was measured with the use of regression-based inequality indexes. In almost all countries, the rates of death and poorer self-assessments of health were substantially higher in groups of lower socioeconomic status, but the magnitude of the inequalities between groups of higher and lower socioeconomic status was much larger in some countries than in others. Inequalities in mortality were small in some southern European countries and very large in most countries in the eastern and Baltic regions. These variations among countries appeared to be attributable in part to causes of death related to smoking or alcohol use or amenable to medical intervention. The magnitude of inequalities in self-assessed health also varied substantially among countries, but in a different pattern. We observed variation across Europe in the magnitude of inequalities in health associated with socioeconomic status. These inequalities might be reduced by improving educational opportunities, income distribution, health-related behavior, or access to health care. Copyright 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Cochrane Update. 'Scoping the scope' of a cochrane review.

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMC Public Health
                BMC Public Health
                BMC Public Health
                BioMed Central
                1471-2458
                2014
                24 February 2014
                : 14
                : 198
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
                [2 ]CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
                [3 ]Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Barcelona, Spain
                [4 ]Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain
                [5 ]Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK
                [6 ]Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands
                [7 ]Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
                [8 ]Department of Community & Occupational Health, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
                [9 ]Graduate School Kosice Institute for Society and Health, Safarik University, Kosice, Slovakia
                [10 ]Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
                Article
                1471-2458-14-198
                10.1186/1471-2458-14-198
                3938820
                24564851
                17500cb3-1bb2-41be-b86b-dd6a9f86b261
                Copyright © 2014 Pons-Vigués et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.

                History
                : 29 July 2013
                : 4 February 2014
                Categories
                Research Article

                Public health
                health inequalities,interventions,public policies,urban health,cities,scoping review
                Public health
                health inequalities, interventions, public policies, urban health, cities, scoping review

                Comments

                Comment on this article