RT Journal Article
T1 Mechanism substitution in preventive innovations: Dissecting the reproduction of health inequalities in the United States
A1 Zapata Moya, Ángel Ramón
A1 Freese, Jeremy
A1 Bracke, Piet
K1 Fundamental cause theory
K1 Diffusion of innovations
K1 Preventive innovations
K1 Reproduction of inequalities
K1 Replacement meta-hypothesis
AB In the last three decades, numerous studies in different countries have corroborated the main postulates of the Fundamental Cause Theory (FCT), providing evidence showing how health inequalities are reproduced as society increases its capacity to control disease and/or avoid its consequences through preventive innovations. However, documenting the reproductive logic proposed by the theory requires the development of a dynamic analytical approach to consider socioeconomic disparities in the incorporation of multiple preventive innovations over time, which could act as mediating mechanisms of the durable relationship between socioeconomic status and health/mortality. This study draws on data from different waves of the National Health Interview Survey and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyze the diffusion processes of various innovations in the U.S. The results of the study show that educational inequalities emerge, are amplified, and are reduced by the continuous diffusion of preventive innovations, supporting the meta-hypothesis of substitution of mediating mechanisms according to the interconnections of FCT and Diffusion of Innovation Theory.
YR 2023
FD 2023-11
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10433/16746
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10433/16746
LA en
NO Social Science & Medicine, vol 337, 116262
NO Gobierno de España Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-103853RA-I00; 10.13039/501100011033; Healthy Cultural Scenes: the symbolic-cultural context).  Gobierno de España Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Estancias de movilidad en el extranjero José Castillejo (CAS18/00417). Funding for open access publishing: Universidad Pablo de Olavide.
NO Centro de Sociología y Políticas Locales
NO Stanford University
NO Ghent University
DS RIO
RD May 24, 2026