Research guides: Public Health: Health Equity & Social Determinants of Health

What is Health Equity?

"Health equity discusses the concept of every person having an equal opportunity to achieve their optimal health. This concept is different than the idea of everyone having equal health, but rather equal access to resources needed to improve or maintain health (WHO, 2017). Health is affected by many factors beyond genetics or healthcare.

The social determinants of health describe the phenomenon of how social constructs can also impact health in ways that may be unfair or unjust for certain groups within a population (Solar & Irwin, 2010)."

[Source: What is Health Equity?, Ontario Public Health Association]

Tips for improving your searches

Be sure to use a variety of subject headings and keywords
- It's important to use a wide-ranging vocabulary - and bear in mind that using only contemporary words or phrases may be limiting. While some of the words used to categorize the literature in databases may be outdated, problematic, or offensive rather than reflecting contemporary usage, it's still useful to use them for the purpose of discovering older research on a topic (often due to a time lag before newly emerging terminology becomes commonplace enough to be reflected in their subject headings).
Remember to go beyond exact synonyms - use related keywords, including antonyms too!
- Consider searching for words with the opposite meaning (e.g. equity or inequity, racist or anti-racist, barriers or facilitators, etc)
Try out search filters for specific populations, equity, and socioeconomic factors when searching in a database

these filters are helpful in pulling out trickier, multifaceted concepts like social determinants of health, or ensuring that you don't miss essential names that are used to describe a certain population group

Additional search guidance:

The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews (2019) - Chapter 16: Equity and specific populations

Selected Books

Communities in Action by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States; Yamrot Negussio (Editor); Alina Baciu (Editor); Amy Geller (Editor); James N. Weinstein (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017
ebook
"Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome."
Critical Approaches to Harm Reduction: conflict, institutionalization, (de-)politicization, and direct action by Christopher Smith; Zack Marshall (Editor)
Call Number: New College - HV5801 .C75 2016
Publication Date: 2016
"This book is divided into three sections ... Although the emphasis of each section and corresponding set of chapters is remarkably diverse, several themes remain prominent throughout this book, including an overtly critical analysis of the multiplicity of contextual deployments of harm reduction, a recurring focus on elevating the value of experiential knowledge and the fundamentally important, central role of people with direct lived experience."
Eliminating Healthcare Disparities in America by Richard Allen Williams (Editor)
Publication Date: 2007
ebook
"In this book, Dr. Richard Allen Williams has assembled the very best scholars on healthcare disparities to raise the public consciousness of this issue. Arranged into discrete categories, this volume contains comprehensive coverage, both historical and current, of the healthcare disparity crisis currently plaguing our country in hopes of leading us all to a brighter future."
Global Perspectives on Social Capital and Health by Ichiro Kawachi (Editor); S. V. Subramanian (Editor); Soshi Takao (Editor)
Publication Date: 2013
ebook
"This book is a follow up to Social Capital and Health (2008), edited by Kawachi, Subramanian & Kim. Global Perspectives on Social Capital and Health provides a timely update on emerging topics in a fast-growing field, and features contributions from an outstanding international team of scholars, selected from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds including: social epidemiology, medical geography, social psychology, social welfare and gerontology, pediatrics, political science, economics, and medical sociology."
Health Inequities in Canada by Olena Hankivsky (Editor)
Publication Date: 2011
ebook
"This volume brings together activists, scholars, and community-based researchers to apply interpretations of intersectionality to health and organizational governance cases. By addressing specific health issues, it demonstrates that inequities cannot be understood without the interrogation of power and diverse social locations and structures that shape lives and experiences of health."
Public Health Evidence: tackling health inequalities by Amanda Killoran (Editor); Catherine Swann (Editor); Michael P. Kelly (Editor); Simon Ellis (Editor); Astero Kanaris (Editor); Antony Morgan (Editor); Louise Millward (Editor); Bhash Naidoo (Editor); Loraine Taylor
Call Number: Gerstein - RA418.3 .G7 P83 2006
Publication Date: 2006
"Public health evidence examines: international trends in social inequalities in health; the role of evidence in public health policy development and practice; the infrastructure of the UK evidence-based approach; selected examples of how evidence is being applied to reduce health inequalities in England; the methodological challenges involved in evaluating interventions and the synthesis of evidence; and how to take this approach forward.The key message is that tackling health inequalities and implementing the evidence-based approach will require commitment from all those involved; researchers, academics, policy makers, the public and private sector, practitioners, the NHS, and local government."
Toward Equity in Health by Barbara C. Wallace
Call Number: Gerstein - RA418 .H3894 2008X
Publication Date: 2007
"This essential collection presents a state-of-the-art framework for how workers in public health and related disciplines should conceptualize health disparities and how they should be addressed worldwide. The contributors, who are leading public health professionals, educators, and practitioners in complimentary fields advance new evidence-based models designed to mobilize and educate the next generation of research and practice."

Reports:

Prevalence and Predictors of Everyday Discrimination in Canada: Findings from the Canadian Community Health Survey
Wellesley Institute | Oct 7, 2019
Ilene Hyman, PhD, Patricia O'Campo PhD, Donna L. Ansara, PhD, Arjumand Siddiqi, ScD, Tonia Forte, Janet Smylie, Deb Finn Mahabir, Kwame McKenzie, MD

Anti-Racist Health Care Practice by by Elizabeth McGibbon, Josephine Etowa
Call Number: Gerstein - RA563 .M56 M264 2009
Publication Date: 2009
"Building on an everyday clinical practice perspective, the authors provide clear and detailed definitions of concepts and terms related to racism and health. Filled with examples of racism in the health care system and strategies to examine and contest racism, this book will become an essential resource for students and practitioners in the health sciences, the sociology of health, and a variety of other disciplines which investigate"
Black and Blue by John Hoberman
Publication Date: 2012
ebook
"Black & Blue is the first systematic description of how American doctors think about racial differences and how this kind of thinking affects the treatment of their black patients. The standard studies of medical racism examine past medical abuses of black people and do not address the racially motivated thinking and behaviors of physicians practicing medicine today."
Black Men, Intergenerational Colonialism, and Behavioral Health by Donald E. Grant Jr.
Publication Date: 2019
ebook
"This book provides an in-depth historical exploration of the risk and protective factors that generate disproportionality in the psychological wellness, somatic health, and general safety of Black men in four industrialized Euronormative nations. It provides a detailed analysis of how nationalism, globalism, colonialism, and imperialism have facilitated practices, philosophies, and policies to support the development and maintenance of inter-generational systems of oppression for Black men and boys."
Blood Sugar: Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America by Anthony Ryan Hatch
Publication Date: 2016
ebook
"Why do African Americans have exceptionally high rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity? Is it their genes? Their disease-prone culture? Their poor diets? Such racist explanations for racial inequalities in metabolic health have circulated in medical journals for decades. Blood Sugar analyzes and challenges the ways in which “metabolic syndrome” has become a major biomedical category that medical researchers have created to better understand the risks high blood pressure, blood sugar, body fat, and cholesterol pose to people."
Determinants of indigenous peoples' health in Canada : beyond the social by Edited by Margo Greenwood, Sarah de Leeuw, Nicole Marie Lindsay, and Charlotte Reading
Call Number: Available in print at various libraries
Publication Date: 2015
"The health disparities affecting Indigenous peoples in Canada might well be understood as a national epidemic. Although progress has been made in the last decade towards both understanding and ameliorating Indigenous health inequalities, very little research or writing has expanded a social determinants of health framework to account for the unique histories and present realities of Indigenous peoples in this country. This timely edited collection addresses this significant knowledge gap, exploring the ways that multiple health determinants beyond the social - from colonialism to geography, from economy to biology - converge to impact the health status of Indigenous peoples in Canada. This unique collection, comprised largely of contributions by Indigenous authors, offers the voices and expertise of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis writers from across Canada.[...] from scholarly papers by research experts in the field, to reflective essays by Indigenous leaders [...] broadens the social determinants of health framework to better understand health inequality. Most importantly, it does so by placing front and center the voices and experiences of Indigenous peoples."
Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings
Publication Date: 2019
ebook
"Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals--where fat bodies were once praised--showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of "savagery" and racial inferiority ... An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn't about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice."
Health Issues in the Black Community by Ronald L. Braithwaite (Editor); Sandra E. Taylor (Editor); Henrie M. Treadwell (Editor)
Call Number: Gerstein - RA448.5 .N4 H395 2009X
Publication Date: 2009
"Health Issues in the Black Community illuminates comprehensively the range of health conditions specifically affecting African Americans, and the health disparities both within the black community and between racial and ethnic groups. Each chapter, whether addressing the health of African Americans by age, gender, type of disease, condition or behavior, is well-detailed and tells an important story. Together, they offer practitioners, consumers, scholars, and policymakers a crucial roadmap to address and change the social determinants of health, reduce disparities, and create more equal treatment for all Americans."
The Inequality and African-American Health by Shirley A. Hill
Publication Date: 2016
ebook
"This book reveals how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system. Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care. Inequality and African-American Health is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans."
Oppression: a social determinant of health by Elizabeth A. McGibbon (editor)
Call Number: Gerstein - RA418 .O66 2012
Publication Date: 2012
"An important addition to the relatively new field of critical health studies, Oppression is an integration of critical social scientific perspectives and health systems/health sciences knowledge. The goal of the book is to support, enhance and provoke action to interrogate the progress of oppression. It can be done, and it is being done."
Race and Well-Being by Carl James; Akua Benjamin (Editor); Wanda Thomas Bernard; David Estes; Bethan Lloyd; Tana Turner
Call Number: Robarts - FC106 .B6 R33 2010
Publication Date: 2010
"Through in-depth qualitative research with African Canadians in three Canadian cities--Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax--this study explores how experiences of racism, when combined with other social and economic factors, affect the health and well-being of this segment of the country`s population. With a special interest in how racial stereotyping impacts black men and boys, the book presents stories of racism and violence and describes how reactions to racism differ across a range of social and economic variables."
Racism by Chandra L. Ford
Call Number: Gerstein - RA563 .M56 R336 2019X
Publication Date: 2019
"This book outlines the relationship between racism and health, while providing public health professionals with a variety of actions, strategies, and tools to understand and address the public health implications of racism, as well as inspiration to pursue health equity"
Reclaiming Our Health by Michelle A. Gourdine
Publication Date: 2011
ebook
"In this important and accessible book, Dr. Michelle Gourdine provides African Americans with the knowledge and guidance they need to take charge of their well-being ... This interactive guide with illustrations is a vital resource for every African American on how to live a healthier and more empowered life, and an indispensable handbook for health-care providers, policy makers, and others working to close the health gap among people of color."
There's Something in the Water by Ingrid Waldron
Call Number: Law (Bora Laskin) - HC120 .E5 W35 2018
Publication Date: 2018
"In "There's Something In The Water", Ingrid R. G. Waldron examines the legacy of environmental racism and its health impacts in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada, using Nova Scotia as a case study, and the grassroots resistance activities by Indigenous and Black communities against the pollution and poisoning of their communities. Using settler colonialism as the overarching theory, Waldron unpacks how environmental racism operates as a mechanism of erasure enabled by the intersecting dynamics of white supremacy, power, state-sanctioned racial violence, neoliberalism and racial capitalism in white settler societies."

The Equal Curriculum: The Student and Educator Guide to LGBTQ Health by James R. Lehman (Editor); Kristine Diaz (Editor); Henry Ng (Editor); Elizabeth Petty (Editor); Meena Thatikunta (Editor); Kristen Eckstrand (Editor)
Publication Date: 2020
"This first-of-its-kind textbook marks a revolutionary effort to reform medical education nationally by providing a comprehensive, high-quality resource to serve as a foundation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) health education across multiple disciplines. Addressing the decades-long unequal weight of medical education generally offered about the care of LGBTQ people, The Equal Curriculum was created to advance clinicians' competencies in optimizing the health of LGBTQ people. This textbook is designed to be integrated into health sciences curricula and offers pointed strategies to evaluate the integration of LGBTQ health topics. Starting with a brief overview, chapters 1 through 4 cover general content that is highly relevant to all health professionals working with LGBTQ people. Chapters 5 through 12 focus on specific patient populations and clinical specialties, and chapters 13 and 14 cover special topics. [...] should be of great interest to health sciences instructors, medical students in their preclinical and clinical phases, and trainees from other disciplines, such as physician assistants, nurses, social workers, and public health professionals."
LGBTQ Cultures: what health care professionals need to know about sexual and gender diversity (3rd ed) by Michele J. Eliason, Michele J; Peggy L. Chinn
Publication Date: 2018
ebook
"Drawn from real-world experience and current research, the fully updated LGBTQ Cultures, 3rd Edition paves the way for healthcare professionals to provide well-informed, culturally sensitive healthcare to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) patients. This vital guide fills the LGBTQ awareness gaps, including replacing myths and stereotypes with facts, and measuring the effects of social stigma on health."
Communicating Women's Health: social and cultural norms that influence health decisions by Annette Madlock Gatison (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
ebook
"This volume explores the conditions under which women are empowered, and feel entitled, to make the health decisions that are best for them. At its core, it illuminates how the most basic element of communication, voice, has been summarily suppressed for entire groups of women when it comes to control of their own sexuality, reproductive lives, and health. [...] Bringing together personal narratives, key theory and literature, and original qualitative and quantitative studies, the book provides an in-depth comparative picture of how and why women's health varies for distinct groups of women. Organized into four parts--historical influences on patient and provider perceptions, breast cancer the silence and the shame, make it taboo: mothering, reproduction, and womanhood, and sex, sexuality, relational health, and womanhood--each section is introduced with a brief synthesis and discussion of the key questions addressed across the chapters."
Gender Equity in Health: the shifting frontiers of evidence and action by Gita Sen (Editor); Piroska Östlin (Editor)
ISBN: 9780203866900
Publication Date: 2010
ebook
"This volume brings together experts from a variety of disciplines, such as medicine, biology, sociology, epidemiology, anthropology, economics and political science, who focus on three areas: health disparities and inequity due to gender, the specific problems women face in meeting the highest attainable standards of health, and the policies and actions that can address them. Highlighting the importance of intersecting social hierarchies (e.g. gender, class and ethnicity) for understanding health inequities and their implications for health policy, contributors detail and recommend policy approaches and agendas that incorporate, but go beyond commonly acknowledged issues relating to women's health and gender equity in health."

Blacks in Medicine by Richard Allen Williams
Publication Date: 2020
ebook
"This socially conscious, culturally relevant book explores the little-known history and present climate of Black people in the medical field. It reveals the deficiencies in the American healthcare structure that have contributed to the mismanagement of healthcare in the Black population, and examines cross-currents that intersect with the major events in minority medical history."
Critical Research on Sexism and Racism in STEM Fields by Ursula Thomas (Editor); Jill Drake (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
ebook
"Critical Research on Sexism and Racism in STEM Fields investigates the bias, stereotyping, and repression experienced by women within STEM-based career fields. Emphasizing the struggle felt by women within politics, education systems, business environments, STEM careers, as well as issues with advocacy and leadership, this publication benefits professionals, social activists, researchers, academics, managers, and practitioners interested in the institutionalized discrimination and prejudice women encounter in various fields."
Flatlining: race, work, and health care in the new economy by Adia Harvey Wingfield
Publication Date: 2019
ebook
"What happens to black health care professionals in the new economy, where work is insecure and organizational resources are scarce? In Flatlining, Adia Harvey Wingfield exposes how hospitals, clinics, and other institutions participate in "racial outsourcing," relying heavily on black doctors, nurses, technicians, and physician assistants to do "equity work"--extra labor that makes organizations and their services more accessible to communities of color."
Real Nurses and Others by Tania Das Gupta
Publication Date: 2009
ebook
"Based on a recent survey of more than 500 Ontario Nursing Association members, this study demonstrates how racism impacts working relations in the nursing profession ... Dealing with the concept of racism within the frameworks of human rights legislation and the political economy of health care, this reference illustrates its causes in detail, providing a foundation from which nurses and other workers can combat racial harassment."

Other Resources

Social Determinants of Health Resources
From Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA)
What is Health Equity?
Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA)
Includes tools and other resources.
Health Inequalities
Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI)
- Includes Canadian data and reports, and measuring and reporting toolkit.
"In collaboration with other national, provincial and regional organizations, CIHI is promoting the measurement of health inequalities through the reporting of health indicator results by socio-economic status and demographic factors [...] (e.g., low income, rural/remote and racialized groups)."
Health equity
Health Nexus
Includes reports, videos, and other resources.
Key public health resources for advocacy and health equity: A curated list
From National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH) | 2015
Ethical foundations of health equity: A curated list
From National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH) | 2020
Health Equity
Public Health Ontario (PHO)
Includes factsheets, infographics, courses, data and analysis, curated research articles, reports, and presentations.
Health Equity
Wellesley Institute
Includes policy briefs relating to health equity in the Greater Toronto Area

Gerstein Science Information Centre

Public Health

What is Health Equity?

Tips for improving your searches

Selected Books

Reports:

Other Resources

Library links

Libraries

Contact

Connect with us