Politics, welfare regimes, and population health: Controversies and evidence

Carles Muntaner, Carme Borrell, Edwin Ng, Haejoo Chung, Albert Espelt, Maica Rodriguez-Sanz, Joan Benach, Patricia O'Campo

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

139 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, a research area has emerged within social determinants of health that examines the role of politics, expressed as political traditions/parties and welfare state characteristics, on population health. To better understand and synthesise this growing body of evidence, the present literature review, informed by a political economy of health and welfare regimes framework, located 73 empirical and comparative studies on politics and health, meeting our inclusion criteria in three databases: PubMed (1948-), Sociological Abstracts (1953-), and ISI Web of Science (1900 We identified two major research programmes, welfare regimes and democracy, and two emerging programmes, political tradition and globalisation. Primary findings include: (1) left and egalitarian political traditions on population health are the most salutary, consistent, and substantial; (2) the health impacts of advanced and liberal democracies are also positive and large; (3) welfare regime studies, primarily conducted among wealthy countries, find that social democratic regimes tend to fare best with absolute health outcomes yet consistently in terms of relative health inequalities; and (4) globalisation defined as dependency indicators such as trade, foreign investment, and national debt is negatively associated with population health. We end by discussing epistemological, theoretical, and methodological issues for consideration for future research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)946-964
Number of pages19
JournalSociology of Health and Illness
Volume33
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011 Sept

Keywords

  • Democracy
  • Globalisation
  • Political tradition
  • Politics
  • Population health
  • Welfare state

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health(social science)
  • Health Policy
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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