RT Journal Article
T1 Local welfare systems and health inequalities: the effects of institutional overlapping and local variations
A1 Navarro, Clemente J.
A1 Zapata Moya, Ángel R.
A1 Rodríguez García, María Jesús
K1 Local welfare system
K1 Health inequalities
K1 Urban policies
K1 Contextual analysis
K1 Spain
AB A growing research agenda shows the importance of local welfare systems in understanding socio-spatial inequalities in health. Welfare services provided by local governments overlap with those provided by other levels of government. Thus, differences in the provision of welfare services between municipalities could explain differences in residents’ health, moderating the magnitude of health inequalities if local governments deploy actions capable of positively influencing the social determinants of health. This article attempts to analyse this idea in the Spanish case, exploring the influence of local policies according to the orientation of municipal spending on three indicators of the population’s health status: self-perceived health, healthy practices and activity limitations due to health problems. A multilevel cross-sectional study was designed using information from two waves of the 2006–2007 and 2011–2012 National Health Survey for the population aged 15 years and older (N = 31,378) residing in Spanish municipalities of 20,000 inhabitants or over (N = 373). Theresults show that the magnitude of inequalities in self-perceived health, in the adoption of healthy practices and in daily activity limitations by social class are smaller as municipalities” spending was oriented towards policy areas considered as redistributive. Therefore, the proposed institutional overlap thesis could help understand the role of subnational governments on the magnitude of health inequalities, as well as in comparative analysis between countries with institutional systems in which local governments have a greater or lesser capacity to provide welfare services.
PB MDPI
YR 2022
FD 2022-11-22
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10433/22698
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10433/22698
LA en
NO Rodríguez-García, M. J., Navarro-Yáñez, C. J., & Zapata-Moya, Á. R. (2022). Local Welfare Systems and Health Inequalities: The Effects of Institutional Overlapping and Local Variations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(23), 15447. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192315447
NO Centro de Sociologia y Politicas Locales
DS RIO
RD May 9, 2026