Desigualdad social e inequidades en salud

Desarrollo de conceptos y comprensión de relaciones

Abstract

A brief review on the evolution of the social inequality concept, the main theoretical approaches and the essential differences between them are presented. The conservative thesis and its counterpart the “radical antithesis" are contrasted. The relationship between social inequality and health is reviewed and showing that this link has been identified since long time ago in ancient civilizations. We propose that in the XIX and XX centuries those relationships became more visible linked to the emergent discourses of social movements for equity. Also, we identified that in the decade of 1990, the focus in social inequality was progressively sustituted with the concept of poverty. Finally, this paper refers to the emergency of the concept of inequity as one of the central categories to build the Health Agenda in the new millenium.