Social Determinants of Health and the Indivisibility of Social Justice

The work starts from a holistic conception of health as a reality shaped by the interaction of multiple factors; (i) genetic / biological, (ii) individual behavioural / lifestyles, and (iii) environmental, including both the physical environment and social circumstances. The social “determinants” of health (SDH) approach underlines the importance of the social environment, that is, the influence that social structures and the position that each person occupies in the social system have on health and illness. SDH generate deep inequalities in health between the different social groups and between the different countries. This is one of the most important social justice issues facing modern societies and the globalized world. Hence, since the end of the 1970s in the series of international conferences on health promotion, to guarantee equity has been considered a priority objective of health policies. The principle of Health in All Policies is a corollary of the SDH approach. So that the merit of this approach lies, inter alia, in highlighting the indivisibility of the various dimensions of social justice.