INAUGURAL SOUTHGATE ORATION
Flinders University
17 March 2009
Attended by Libby Kalucy, Ann-Louise Hordacre & Sara Howard, PHC RIS
Presenter: Professor Hilary Graham, University of York, UK
The new Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity aims to build on the international, national and local reputation of Flinders University for conducting policy and practice relevant research on the social and economic determinants of health and health equity, under the direction of Professor Fran Baum, Federation Fellow. The Institute is named after the late Deane Southgate AM FRACGP, FACOM, Head of then Department of Primary Care and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine, Flinders University at the time of his death in 1991.
Many countries have responded to persisting and widening health inequalities by developing explicit new public health goals and approaches. To the traditional goal of increasing overall health, England, Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and USA have added a second core goal, to reduce health disparities by tackling social determinants.
Reducing health disparities can mean improving health of disadvantaged groups, which means no action is needed as this is the current trend. A more ambitious meaning is to narrow the gap between most and least advantaged, which reverses the dominant trend in many countries but continues the focus on disadvantaged groups rather than on the wider social gradient. The most ambitious meaning of the goal is aimed at the whole society, with progress being made in absolute and relative improvement of health in the disadvantaged groups and in the middle tiers of the gradient.
However, it is a challenge to sustain this inclusive goal rather than targeting behaviour and risk factors of the most disadvantaged groups. Hilary Graham clearly demonstrated that UK policy makers had retreated to traditional public health policy, by changing from the broad inclusive concept in the 1999 White Paper to the 2007 implementation plan which focused on successful delivery of smoking, hypertension and cholesterol targets through the NHS rather than action on wider social determinants.
Further information about this event is available at <www.flinders.edu.au/southgate/events.htm>
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