Social Work and Global Health Inequalities: Practice and Policy Developments, Paul Bywaters, Eileen McLeod and Lindsey Napier (eds), Bristol, UK, The Policy Press, 2009, pp. xii + 303, ISBN 978 1 84742 195 1 (pb),  23.99

Careful investigations of the political determinants of health that include the role of power in health inequalities—systematic differences in health achievements among different population groups—are increasing but remain inadequate. Historically, much of the research examining health inequalities has been influenced by biomedical perspectives and focused, as such, on ‘downstream’ factors. More recently, there has been greater recognition of more ‘distal’ and ‘upstream’ drivers of health inequalities, including the impacts of power as expressed by actors, as well as embedded in societal structures, institutions, and processes. The goal of this chapter is to examine how power has been conceptualised and analysed to date in relation to health inequalities. After reviewing the state of health inequality scholarship and the emerging interest in studying power in global health, the chapter presents varied conceptualisations of power and how they are used in the literature to understand health inequalities. The chapter highlights the particular disciplinary influences in studying power across the social sciences, including anthropology, political science, and sociology, as well as cross-cutting perspectives such as critical theory and health capability. It concludes by highlighting strengths and limitations of the existing research in this area and discussing power conceptualisations and frameworks that so far have been underused in health inequalities research. This includes potential areas for future inquiry and approaches that may expand the study of as well as action on addressing health inequality.

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COVID-19 and the calls of humanistic social work: Exploring the developmental-clinical social work concerns of the pandemic

International Social Work ◽

10.1177/00208728211007911 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002087282110079

Author(s):

Robert K Chigangaidze

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Social Work ◽

Global Health ◽

Technological Innovation ◽

Service Provision ◽

Social Inequalities ◽

Clinical Social Work ◽

Health Community ◽

The Social ◽

The Face

Any health outbreak is beyond the biomedical approach. The COVID-19 pandemic exposes a calamitous need to address social inequalities prevalent in the global health community. Au fait with this, the impetus of this article is to explore the calls of humanistic social work in the face of the pandemic. It calls for the pursuit of social justice during the pandemic and after. It also calls for a holistic service provision, technological innovation and stewardship. Wrapping up, it challenges the global community to rethink their priorities – egotism or altruism. It emphasizes the ultimate way forward of addressing the social inequalities.

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