Health and policy in the welfare state

The course introduces welfare research and adopts a historical and comparative perspective based on different countries and different welfare models. It addresses how the welfare state’s institutional characteristics and programmes can affect stratification processes and health – for example by policies that may affect the social determinants of health such as impact on gender differences, redistribution of resources, and poverty risks. The course further covers neoliberal influences on public health and welfare policies, and some of its consequences, since the 1990s such as: marketisation of health and welfare systems through privatisation and de-regulation, shifts towards conditioning and activation policies, governance, individualisation of health, and responsibilisation.