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. 2018 Jul 13;18(1):869.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5677-1.

The effects of public health policies on health inequalities in high-income countries: an umbrella review

Katie Thomson  1   2 , Frances Hillier-Brown  2   3 , Adam Todd  1   2   4 , Courtney McNamara  5 , Tim Huijts  6 , Clare Bambra  7   8
Affiliations

The effects of public health policies on health inequalities in high-income countries: an umbrella review

Katie Thomson et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Socio-economic inequalities are associated with unequal exposure to social, economic and environmental risk factors, which in turn contribute to health inequalities. Understanding the impact of specific public health policy interventions will help to establish causality in terms of the effects on health inequalities.

Methods: Systematic review methodology was used to identify systematic reviews from high-income countries that describe the health equity effects of upstream public health interventions. Twenty databases were searched from their start date until May 2017. The quality of the included articles was determined using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews tool (AMSTAR).

Results: Twenty-nine systematic reviews were identified reporting 150 unique relevant primary studies. The reviews summarised evidence of all types of primary and secondary prevention policies (fiscal, regulation, education, preventative treatment and screening) across seven public health domains (tobacco, alcohol, food and nutrition, reproductive health services, the control of infectious diseases, the environment and workplace regulations). There were no systematic reviews of interventions targeting mental health. Results were mixed across the public health domains; some policy interventions were shown to reduce health inequalities (e.g. food subsidy programmes, immunisations), others have no effect and some interventions appear to increase inequalities (e.g. 20 mph and low emission zones). The quality of the included reviews (and their primary studies) were generally poor and clear gaps in the evidence base have been highlighted.

Conclusions: The review does tentatively suggest interventions that policy makers might use to reduce health inequalities, although whether the programmes are transferable between high-income countries remains unclear.

Trial registration: PROSPERO registration number: CRD42016025283.

Keywords: Equity; Evaluation; Intervention; Regulation; Social determinants of health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable. Only published reviews were included in this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Conceptual framework of population-level preventative public health policies to reduce health inequalities
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Flow chart of selection procedure
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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