Documents Navarro, Vicente 5 results

"This volume provides a timely collection of the most germane studies and commentaries on the complex links between recent changes in national economies, welfare regimes, social inequalities, and population health. Drs. Vicente Navarro and Carles Muntaner have selected 24 representative articles, organized around six themes, from the widely read pages of the International Journal of Health Services (2006-2013) - articles that not only challenge conventional approaches to population health but offer new insights and robust results that critically advance public health scholarship. Part I applies a social-conflict perspective to better understand how political forces, processes, and institutions precede and give rise to social inequalities, economic instability, and population health. The need to politicize dominant (neoliberal) ideologies is emphasized, given its explanatory power to elucidate unequal power relations. The next four parts focus on the health impacts of growing inequalities and economic decline on government services and transfers (Part II); labor markets and employment conditions (Part III); welfare states and regimes (Part IV); and social class relations (Part V). Part VI advocates for a more politically engaged approach to population health and presents alternative solutions to achieving egalitarian outcomes, which, in turn, improve health and reduce health inequalities. Taken together, the works in this volume reflect IJHS 's collective commitment to publishing high-impact studies, inspiring fruitful debates, and advancing the discipline in new and essential ways. Emerging and established researchers as well as students and professionals committed to health equity matters will benefit from this book's astute contributions."

"Since U.S. President Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Thatcher, a major ideology (under the name of economic science) has been expanded worldwide that claims that the best policies to stimulate human development are those that reduce the role of the state in economic and social lives: privatizing public services and public enterprises, deregulating the mobility of capital and labor, eliminating protectionism, and reducing public social protection. This ideology, called "neoliberalism," has guided the globalization of economic activity and become the conventional wisdom in international agencies and institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and the technical agencies of the United Nations, including the WHO). Reproduced in the "Washington consensus" in the United States and the "Brussels consensus" in the European Union, this ideology has guided policies widely accepted as the only ones possible and advisable.
This book assembles a series of articles that challenge that ideology. Written by well-known scholars, these articles question each of the tenets of neoliberal doctrine, showing how the policies guided by this ideology have adversely affected human development in the countries where they have been implemented."

"The aim of this study was to examine the complex interactions between political traditions, policies, and public health outcomes, and to find out whether different political traditions have been associated with systematic patterns in population health over time. We analysed a number of political, economic, social, and health variables over a 50-year period, in a set of wealthy countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Our findings support the hypothesis that the political ideologies of governing parties affect some indicators of population health. Our analysis makes an empirical link between politics and policy, by showing that political parties with egalitarian ideologies tend to implement redistributive policies. An important finding of our research is that policies aimed at reducing social inequalities, such as welfare state and labour market policies, do seem to have a salutary effect on the selected health indicators, infant mortality and life expectancy at birth."