Introduction

Previous chapters have exemplified the contribution that social work can make to understanding and tackling global health inequalities. They have also located that practice and its policy implications in a global context, including the processes of globalisation. In doing so they have begun to map out:

• • How socially constructed global health inequalities are a central issue for social work.

• • The key features of social work's contribution to tackling global health inequalities.

• • Implications for the further development of social work's role in tackling global health inequalities.

In conclusion, we distil the main lessons concerning these issues.

Global health inequalities: a central issue for social work

Much of the analysis of health inequalities is based on epidemiological evidence about the relationship between measures of socio-economic position and health outcomes in terms of mortality and morbidity (Graham, 2007). While many of our authors take a whole population approach to their work, most strikingly social work contributes added depth to understanding the mechanisms by which social inequalities become inequalities in health at the level of individuals or communities. As preceding chapters have shown, social workers’ direct encounters with people who have been on the receiving end of health-damaging cumulative ‘insults’ put them in a position to listen to and reflect on that experience. From these relationships five themes have emerged which provide compelling evidence of the centrality of socially constructed health inequalities as a global social work issue.

Specific populations facing adverse global social conditions

First, our authors highlight the profound impact of adverse social conditions, often rooted in globalisation, on the health of specific populations. Across all locations they highlight how, as a result of social disadvantage, certain groups lack the basic resources for good health, such as homeless women in the US (Moxley and Washington); or experience discrimination, for example, on grounds of their sexual orientation (Fish) or their ethnicity (Quinn and Knifton, and Ho); or disablist marginalisation, in the course of living with cancer (Lethborg and Posenelli) or other life-threatening illnesses (Quin and Clarke). Making links between individuals’ stories and global forces is not always easy. However, the impact of structural economic forces, privatisation and commodification, climate change and environmental destruction, and political conflict and violence are apparent.