Impacto del informe de la Comisión sobre Determinantes Sociales de la Salud cuatro años después

Abstract

After more than three years of work, the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health launched its final Report "Closing the gap in a generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health" at the end of August 2008. This report, which is probably one of the most interesting texts in the field of public health in recent decades, has attracted a lot of attention. It has been the object of remarkable praises, of ardent criticism, and to lesser extent, of more balanced and reasonable critiques. The aim of this paper was to critically evaluate the report and to assess its impact four years after its publication. Firstly, the origins and objectives of the Commission was reviewed, outlining the vision and dissemination of the report; secondly, the characteristics and contents of the report were assessed from different ideological and political points of view including neoliberal, conservative, social epidemiology and radical view of public health; and finally, the overall impact of the Report four years after publication was evaluated. The paper concluded with some final reflections.