↓ Skip to main content

Did the English strategy reduce inequalities in health? A difference-in-difference analysis comparing England with three other European countries

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, August 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
3 blogs
policy
1 policy source
twitter
23 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
21 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
81 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Did the English strategy reduce inequalities in health? A difference-in-difference analysis comparing England with three other European countries
Published in
BMC Public Health, August 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12889-016-3505-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Yannan Hu, Frank J. van Lenthe, Ken Judge, Eero Lahelma, Giuseppe Costa, Rianne de Gelder, Johan P. Mackenbach

Abstract

Between 1997 and 2010, the English government pursued an ambitious programme to reduce health inequalities, the explicit and sustained commitment of which was historically and internationally unique. Previous evaluations have produced mixed results. None of these evaluations have, however, compared the trends in health inequalities within England with those in other European countries. We carried out an innovative analysis to assess whether changes in trends in health inequalities observed in England after the implementation of its programme, have been more favourable than those in other countries without such a programme. Data were obtained from nationally representative surveys carried out in England, Finland, the Netherlands and Italy for years around 1990, 2000 and 2010. A modified difference-in-difference approach was used to assess whether trends in health inequalities in 2000-2010 were more favourable as compared to the period 1990-2000 in England, and the changes in trends in inequalities after 2000 in England were then compared to those in the three comparison countries. Health outcomes were self-assessed health, long-standing health problems, smoking status and obesity. Education was used as indicator of socioeconomic position. After the implementation of the English strategy, more favourable trends in some health indicators were observed among low-educated people, but trends in health inequalities in 2000-2010 in England were not more favourable than those observed in the period 1990-2000. For most health indicators, changes in trends of health inequalities after 2000 in England were also not significantly different from those seen in the other countries. In this rigorous analysis comparing trends in health inequalities in England both over time and between countries, we could not detect a favourable effect of the English strategy. Our analysis illustrates the usefulness of a modified difference-in-difference approach for assessing the impact of policies on population-level health inequalities.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 23 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 81 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Finland 1 1%
United Kingdom 1 1%
Denmark 1 1%
Unknown 78 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 13 16%
Student > Bachelor 9 11%
Researcher 8 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 7%
Other 18 22%
Unknown 20 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 19 23%
Nursing and Health Professions 13 16%
Social Sciences 10 12%
Psychology 5 6%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 4 5%
Other 6 7%
Unknown 24 30%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 34. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 December 2020.
All research outputs
#1,002,385
of 22,883,326 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#1,074
of 14,925 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,348
of 341,481 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#31
of 407 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,883,326 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,925 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 341,481 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 407 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.