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BEDREHELSE-Bedre helse og livskvalitet

Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research (CHAIN)

Alternative title: Senter for global helseulikhetsforskning

Awarded: NOK 36.8 mill.

Inequality kills everywhere. Poor children and families from all corners of the world are far more likely to live in poorer health under worse living conditions than those who are wealthier. We often refer to such inequalities as "socio-economic inequalities in health" and they have been observed in all countries with available data. Such inequalities are also considered to be unfair, unnecessary, and avoidable. They begin to emerge during childhood and despite massive improvements in our ability to prevent and treat ill-health, they continue to grow. The CHAIN project, which includes partner organizations such as WHO, IHME and UNICEF, is providing a better understanding of socioeconomic inequalities in health. In terms of the mechanisms that provide long lives in good health, our research has had a broad focus: from environmental factors, climate change, pandemic, technology, vaccine nationalism, welfare policy, and health systems to migration, education, work environment, cancer screening, health care use, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, and diet. CHAIN also identifies interventions that are effective in reducing health inequalities in all global regions. Embedded in sociology, CHAIN’s work combines research fields (from sociology and social policy to epidemiology, neuroscience, medicine, and technology), sectors (academia, civil society, national authorities, the European Commission, the UN and WHO), activities (from the establishment of new data infrastructure and theory development to explanatory and causal analyzes and interventions), and methodologies (quantitative, qualitiative and mixed methods). Good health and well-being are a human right, and health equity is a matter of social justice. The aim of the research is to contribute to political and social change, by improving people's living conditions, reducing social inequality and improve health for all social groups. A key focus has been on education and child mortality. Eikemo has elaborated on these views in hundreds of publications, debates, and media features. Among the most important works are the discovery of systematic links between welfare systems and health inequalities in Europe, the confirmation of the hypothesis that new technologies increase inequalities in health, and that children's health deteriorates in Greek refugee camps over time. In 2021, CHAIN and and IHME discovered a universal link between parent education and child mortality, which was published in the Lancet.

The CHAIN project will provide a better understanding of socioeconomic inequalities in health and identify specific public health policy interventions that are effective in reducing such inequalities in global regions, with a focus on children. More specifically, CHAIN will (1) monitor international variations in health inequalities between and within countries, (2) identify and analyse the causal drivers of health inequalities in different countries, (3) identify and evaluate interventions that have the potential to reduce health inequalities, and (4) propose evidence-based policy and practice guidelines for health equity. This will be done by bringing together Norwegian and international public health groups and international organisations to establish a novel approach to the better determination of the causes of health inequalities, their impacts on groups such as children and their families, and the identification of ‘best practice’ ways of reducing health inequalities in different regions of the world. The CHAIN project will involve leaders from UNICEF, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), EuroHealthNet, and the Institute for Health Metrix and Evaluation (IHME), which leads the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study. The CHAIN project will introduce socioeconomic position as a risk factor in the GBD Study, we will analyse the most important determinants of health inequalities in different contexts, and the policy and programme responses that are most effective in reducing them. Through CHAIN`s partnerships with international academic institutions, UNICEF, IARC, public health experts, and civil society agencies, we further expect to 1) obtain global visibility, 2) reduce the distance between research, policy and practice, and 3) create a national and global arena to attract and advance research talents within health inequalities research.

Publications from Cristin

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BEDREHELSE-Bedre helse og livskvalitet