Does social policy moderate the impact of unemployment on health? A multilevel analysis of 23 welfare states

BACKGROUND: The magnitude of observable health inequalities between the unemployed and their employed counterparts differs considerably across countries. Few attempts have been made to test theoretical explanations for this cross-national variation. Moreover, existing studies suffer from important theoretical and methodological limitations. This study addresses these limitations and investigates whether differences in the generosity of social protection policies and in public attitudes towards those policies explain why unemployment-related health inequalities are steeper in some societies than in others. METHODS: Multilevel logistic modelling was used to link contextual-level variables on social protection policies and public attitudes in 23 European countries to individual-level data on self-rated health from the 2012 wave of the European Social Survey. RESULTS: The magnitude of inequalities in self-rated health between the unemployed and their employed counterparts varies significantly across countries as a function of cross-national differences in the level of social protection awarded to the unemployed and the level of public support for the welfare state. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide empirical support for the claim that governments can play a more active role in mitigating unemployment-related health inequalities by expanding the generosity and scope of social protection policies. Whether such an expansion of social protection will take place in the current climate of fiscal austerity is a political question whose implications merit the attention of population health scholars

El sistema electoral vigent, expressa fidelment l'opinió política del nostre país?

Una anàlisi des del punt de vista psicològic de les dificultats i limitacions que també presenta el nostre sistema electora

Just Say No to the TPP: A Democratic Setback for American and Asian Public Health; Comment on “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?”

The article by Labonté, Schram, and Ruckert is a significant and timely analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) policy and the severe threats to public health that it implies for 12 Pacific Rim populations from the Americas and Asia (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam). With careful and analytic precision the authors convincingly unearth many aspects of this piece of legislation that undermine the public health achievements of most countries involved in the TTP. Our comments complement their policy analysis with the aim of providing a positive heuristic tool to assist in the understanding of the TPP, and other upcoming treaties like the even more encompassing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and in so doing motivate the public health community to oppose the implementation of the relevant provisions of the agreements. The aims of this commentary on the study of Labonté et al are to show that an understanding of the health effects of the TPP is incomplete without a political analysis of policy formation, and that realist methods can be useful to uncover the mechanisms underlying TPP’s political and policy processes

Differences in collaboration structures and impact among prominent researchers in Europe and North America

Scientists collaborate through intricate networks, which impact the quality and scope of their research. At the same time, funding and institutional arrangements, as well as scientific and political cultures, affect the structure of collaboration networks. Since such arrangements and cultures differ across regions in the world in systematic ways, we surmise that collaboration networks and impact should also differ systematically across regions. To test this, we compare the structure of collaboration networks among prominent researchers in North America and Europe. We find that prominent researchers in Europe establish denser collaboration networks, whereas those in North America establish more decentralized networks. We also find that the impact of the publications of prominent researchers in North America is significantly higher than for those in Europe, both when they collaborate with other prominent researchers and when they do not. Although Europeans collaborate with other prominent researchers more often, which increases their impact, we also find that repeated collaboration among prominent researchers decreases the synergistic effect of collaborating

Just Say No to the TPP: A Democratic Setback for American and Asian Public Health Comment on “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?”

The article by Labonté, Schram, and Ruckert is a significant and timely analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) policy and the severe threats to public health that it implies for 12 Pacific Rim populations from the Americas and Asia (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam). With careful and analytic precision the authors convincingly unearth many aspects of this piece of legislation that undermine the public health achievements of most countries involved in the TTP. Our comments complement their policy analysis with the aim of providing a positive heuristic tool to assist in the understanding of the TPP, and other upcoming treaties like the even more encompassing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and in so doing motivate the public health community to oppose the implementation of the relevant provisions of the agreements. The aims of this commentary on the study of Labonté et al are to show that an understanding of the health effects of the TPP is incomplete without a political analysis of policy formation, and that realist methods can be useful to uncover the mechanisms underlying TPP’s political and policy processes

Don’t ask for fair treatment? A gender analysis of ethnic discrimination, response to discrimination, and self-rated health among marriage migrants in South Korea

BACKGROUND: Ethnic discrimination is increasingly common nowadays in South Korea with the influx of migrants. Despite the growing body of evidences suggests that ethnic discrimination negatively impacts health, only few researches have been conducted on the association between ethnic discrimination and health outcomes among marriage migrants in Korea. This study sought to examine how ethnic discrimination and response to the discrimination are related to self-rated health and whether the association differs by victim\u27s gender. METHODS: We conducted two-step analysis using cross-sectional dataset from the \u27National Survey of Multicultural Families 2012\u27. First, we examined the association between perceived ethnic discrimination and self-rated health among 14,406 marriage migrants in Korea. Second, among the marriage migrants who experienced ethnic discrimination (n=5,880), we examined how response to discrimination (i.e., whether or not asking for fair treatment) is related to poor self-rated health. All analyses were conducted after being stratified by the migrant\u27s gender. RESULTS: This research found the significant association between ethnic discrimination and poor self-rated health among female marriage migrants (OR: 1.53, 95 % CI: 1.32, 1.76), but not among male marriage migrants (OR: 1.16, 95 % CI: 0.81, 1.66). In the restricted analysis with marriage migrants who experienced ethnic discrimination, compared to the group who did not ask for fair treatment, female marriage migrants who asked for fair treatment were more likely to report poor self-rated health (OR: 1.21, 95 % CI: 0.98, 1.50); however, male marriage migrants who asked for fair treatment were less likely to report poor self-rated health (OR: 0.65, 95 % CI: 0.36, 1.04) although both were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to investigate gender difference in the association between response to ethnic discrimination and self-rated health in South Korea. We discussed that gender may play an important role in the association between response to discrimination and self-rated health among marriage migrants in Korea. In order to prevent discrimination which could endanger the health of ethnic minorities including marriage migrants, relevant policies are needed