Addressing Social Inequities to Create a More Just, Fair and Equitable World

In: Harvard public health review, Band 2014, Heft 1

Abstract

The Harvard Public Health Review (HPHR) recently sat down with Dr. Nancy Krieger, Professor of Social Epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender and Health, at HPSH. Drawing on her extensive body of research, she outlined how populations ultimately embody their social and ecologic experiences, which, under inequitable conditions—like those related to poverty to global climate change—can result in unfair and unjust distributions of disease and suffering. Far from deeming these distributions a given, Krieger argues that academics, public health professionals, policymakers, and informed constituencies have a right and an obligation to mobilize evidence in their efforts to address heath inequities head on and create a better world for all.