Social Determinants of Health: Chronic Diseases - Individual choices and the social circumstances
The social gradient in health, seen for a number of health outcomes including certain non-communicable chronic diseases, indicates that the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age influence their health. The World Health Organization´s Commission on Social Determinants of Health made recommendations on ways to tackle avoidable systematic differences in health between groups and to improve population health. (Ruth Bell in the Bulletin of Medicus Mundi Switzerland No 115, February 2010)