Download the final 'Closing the Gap' publication: Taking Action on Health Equity.
This publication contains summaries of what each of the 21 ´Closing the Gap´ partners are doing to address health inequalities in their countries, as well as the conclusions and recommendations of this 3-year initiative.
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The Czech Republic is one of the New Member States of the European Union. It has been undergoing significant macroeconomic reforms since 1993, when it split from Czechoslovakia. Health inequalities are a relatively new subject on the political agenda, as during the previous political system the issue was not recognized. This has left a legacy in how the public perceives health inequalities. According to a study conducted by Czech National Institute of Public Health in 2001, only a quarter of society feels that there are differences in health status between different socio-economic groups. The Czech Republic scores highly on equality measure as indicated by Gini coefficient 0.254, where 0=perfect equality and 1=perfect inequality (United Nations Human Development Report, 2004).
The issue of health inequalities has been researched in academic circles and the publication of WHO Health for All document led to increased interest in the subject matter. However, no official political document exists that would set the strategy to tackle health inequalities. There is also no specialized unit dealing with health inequalities and responsibilities are shared between different ministries.
Largely thanks to EU policy and pressure, the social determinants of health inequalities are now being discussed in political documents, in research and in university curricula. However, to date, there is still very little evidence of this translating into practice.
The background information to this entry was collected by the Czech project partner - Professor Vladimir Kebza of the Czech National Public Health Institute.
The following persons also contributed either by participating in the roundtable discussion or by providing their comments independently:
This section provides the key documents on health inequalities published on a national level in the Czech Republic in the past decade.
In this section main tools used to implement and monitor national policies in the field of health inequalities are listed.
In this section key actors that are in a position to have an impact on health inequalities policies, such as ministries, state agencies, universities and/or independent institutes are listed.
Please click here to learn about the databases where you can find a collection of good practices aiming at reducing health inequalities collected in the Czech Republic.