Health is wealth, says an English proverb, which suggests that being healthy is of great value in itself. But perhaps the saying should be inverted as “wealth is health”, because equal access to health treatment, good health and economics are inextricably linked. Moreover, such factors as gender, age, education and where you live can also have an influence on the quality of treatment you as a patient can hope to receive.

Professor Jens Seeberg of the School of Culture and Society in the Faculty of Arts conducts research into antibiotic resistance and the biosocial causes of disease. At this year’s MatchPoints conference, he is chairing a workshop at which he and other Danish and international researchers will focus on institutionalised inequality in access to health – and the possible solutions. And there’s enough to talk about, he says:

“It is basically inequality that distributes disease and health. It is for example the inequality structures that determine how an epidemic is distributed in the world, both in relation to the risk of being exposed to infection and the body’s resilience, access to treatment, and whether you live in generally healthy conditions in your home and at your place of work,” he says.

In fact, Jens Seeberg believes that inequality in health is probably the biggest challenge we have.

“Take tuberculosis, for example. Today, approximately 25% of the world’s population are carriers of tuberculosis. That’s two billion people, and between 5-10% of them have active tuberculosis. The vast majority of tuberculosis sufferers are exposed to health inequality in relation to the environment in which they live, as well as in access to diagnosis and treatment. So it’s inequality structures that determine how this epidemic is distributed around the world.”

Money makes the world go round

At the Department of Public Health, Associate Professor Kim Moesgaard Iburg conducts research into health economics. And you can’t talk about health without talking dollars and cents, he says.

“Economics and health are closely entwined: each depends on the other. This applies from the individual level up to the macro level of a whole society,” he says.

Because it’s not just about the size of your own wallet, or where you stand in the social order: One of the major factors in health inequality is health economics at the overall level, says Kim Moesgaard Iburg:

“The boomer generation is getting ready to retire now, but since the 1960s, the birth rate has fallen. Demographic changes are a major global, national and local challenge. We have some big older generations, who are imposing an increasing burden in, for example, chronic diseases, while, due to the smaller younger generations, there are fewer people to pay tax. Our challenge is to plan, prevent and, through health promotion measures, protect people and social groups from disease and premature death, with reduced public funding.”

Professor Seeberg recognises that the problem is greater than the individual:

“These are what we call social determinants. Many social conditions play a very important role in global health, but we can’t address them within the healthcare sector itself. Addressing the challenges on a large scale will require much greater political action in all sectors of society,” he says.

Equal healthcare for – almost – everyone

The Danish healthcare system is based on the principle of “equal healthcare for all”. But reality is not always consistent with that principle, because in Denmark too, health is unequal, says Jens Seeberg.

“Luckily, that’s something we’re beginning to realise. The benefits are not evenly distributed. Our lifespans are unevenly distributed in relation to socio-economic conditions. We have homelessness, while political initiatives such as removing funding for interpreters also tend to create great inequality, because they fail to recognise that it takes a long time to learn Danish to a level at which you can understand health information,” he explains.

He does not believe that we can talk about health and disease without talking about social conditions.

“It is important not only to look at diseases in the narrow sense, but also to examine the broader social conditions. In Denmark, we’ve been cutting back on and weakening the public health sector over the past decades. This also increases inequality. For example, you can now use health insurance to buy better or faster treatment, while others must endure long waiting times.”