The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) released the report Just Societies: Health Equity and Dignified Lives this Tuesday, October 1st, in Washington, during PAHO’s 57th Board of Directors' second day of meetings. The document presents twelve recommendations to reduce health inequalities in the American continent, with examples of policies, programs and coordinated efforts between governments, transnational organizations and civil society.

The proposed actions are chiefly aimed at the relationship between health and social factors, identified as the main determinants of disparities in the region, within a single country or between nations. According to the report, aspects such as socioeconomic position, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, migration – individually or in combination – affect populations from childhood to old age. To get an idea of these effects, in Bolivia, the under-five mortality rate for indigenous children is more than three times greater than that of non-indigenous children. In Haiti, life expectancy for women is only 66 years, while for women in Canada it is 84 years.

The document also calls attention to the role of structural factors, such as climate change, environmental threats and communities’ relationship with the Earth on health patterns in population groups.   

This work comes from the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas, created by PAHO in 2016 in order to analyze the impact of factors that influence health and, at the same time, propose policies for more equitable societies. The group brings together twelve experts, among them the Emeritus Professor of the Universidade Federal de Pelotas and coordinator of the International Center for Health Equity, Cesar Victora.