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. 2019 Oct 15;18(1):152.
doi: 10.1186/s12939-019-1058-3.

The historical roots and seminal research on health equity: a referenced publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) analysis

Qiang Yao  1   2 , Xin Li  3 , Fei Luo  4 , Lianping Yang  5 , Chaojie Liu  6 , Ju Sun  7   8
Affiliations

The historical roots and seminal research on health equity: a referenced publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) analysis

Qiang Yao et al. Int J Equity Health. .

Abstract

Background: Health equity is a multidimensional concept that has been internationally considered as an essential element for health system development. However, our understanding about the root causes of health equity is limited. In this study, we investigated the historical roots and seminal works of research on health equity.

Methods: Health equity-related publications were identified and downloaded from the Web of Science database (n = 67,739, up to 31 October 2018). Their cited references (n = 2,521,782) were analyzed through Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS), which detected the historical roots and important works on health equity and quantified their impact in terms of referencing frequency.

Results: A total of 17 pronounced peaks and 31 seminal works were identified. The first publication on health equity appeared in 1966. But the first cited reference can be traced back to 1801. Most seminal works were conducted by researchers from the US (19, 61.3%), the UK (7, 22.6%) and the Netherlands (3, 9.7%). Research on health equity experienced three important historical stages: origins (1800-1965), formative (1966-1991) and development and expansion (1991-2018). The ideology of health equity was endorsed by the international society through the World Health Organization (1946) declaration based on the foundational works of Chadwick (1842), Engels (1945), Durkheim (1897) and Du Bois (1899). The concept of health equity originated from the disciplines of public health, sociology and political economics and has been a major research area of social epidemiology since the early nineteenth century. Studies on health equity evolved from evidence gathering to the identification of cost-effective policies and governmental interventions.

Conclusion: The development of research on health equity is shaped by multiple disciplines, which has contributed to the emergence of a new stream of social epidemiology and political epidemiology. Past studies must be interpreted in light of their historical contexts. Further studies are needed to explore the causal pathways between the social determinants of health and health inequalities.

Keywords: Health equity; Historical roots; Milestone works; Reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of publications on health equity from 1966 to 2018
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy of Health Equity (1800–2018). Notes:Distribution of the cited references across the reference publication years 1800–2018: Whereas the blue line shows the distribution of the number of cited references across the publication years, and the orange line shows the absolute deviation of the number of cited references in one year from the median for the number of cited references in the two previous, the current and the two following years
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy of Health Equity (1800–1965). Notes:The peaks with seminal works appeared in 1842, 1845, 1897, 1899, 1939, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1958 and 1963. The peaks of 1848, 1855, 1859, and 1942 were without seminal works related to health equity
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy of Health Equity (1966–1990). Notes:The peaks appeared in 1967 and 1973
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy of Health Equity (1991–2018). Notes:The peaks appeared in 2000, 2006 and 2008
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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