Socioeconomic inequalities in health: the Nordic welfare state perspective

Abstract

The persistence of socioeconomic inequities in health is one of the public health failures. In nations of all income levels, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health. Despite broad universal welfare systems and progressive taxation, the Nordic nations have relatively high socioeconomic inequalities in health compared to other European countries (Friedman et al., 2021). These health disparities are severe, with differences in average life expectancy ranging from 5 to 10 years. In addition, the gap in disability-free life expectancy ranges from 10 to 20 years (Mackenbach, 2017; Kinge, Vallejo-Torres, and Morris, 2015). Especially in the light of the growing amount of evidence that the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are unequally distributed, it is vital to examine the current health care systems to identify and understand the existing structural disparities in health (Reme, Wörn and Skirbekk, 2022). This systematic review aims to assess socioeconomic inequalities in health from one Nordic welfare state: Finland. The reviewed studies were published between 2016 and 2022, examining the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and Finland's health or health care access. The studies present overwhelming evidence that socioeconomic inequalities in health exist in the country across the different aspects of the Finnish health care system.