Final conference ‘Health inequalities: new methods, better insights?’

At this conference of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the final report of the ALLEA/FEAM Health Inequalities project will be presented to a wider audience. The technical contents of this report, ‘Health inequalities: new methods, better insights?’, have already been discussed extensively at a series of well-attended workshops. This conference aims to provide a forum for discussing the implications of the report for research and policy. How can new research methods help us to better understand health inequalities, and how can better science help policymakers to reduce health inequalities more effectively?

This ALLEA/FEAM project took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has again exposed the pervasive nature of health inequalities. The health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been more severe in disadvantaged groups, and the same applies to the negative impact of the countermeasures taken. How can the new methods help to better understand these inequalities, and what is their added value as compared with classical research methods?

Programme

Chair:  Johannes Siegrist (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and committee member)

13:30   Opening on behalf of the KNAW (Sjaak Neefjes, Leiden University Medical Center and KNAW board member)

13:45   Understanding health inequalities: the usefulness of an expanded toolbox (Johan Mackenbach, Erasmus MC and chair of the committee)

14:15   Known unknowns in the field of health inequalities: priorities for research (Ana Diez Roux, Drexel University)

14:35   Solutions for health inequalities: reflections on the interface between science and policy (Margaret Whitehead, University of Liverpool, committee member)

14:55   Discussion

15:15   Tea break

15:30   COVID-19: an unequal pandemic (Clare Bambra, Newcastle University, committee member)

15:50   COVID-19 policies and health inequalities (Thierry Lang, University of Toulouse)

16:10   Causal thinking in a pandemic: tools to understand COVID-19 inequalities and policy responses (Maria Glymour, University of California San Francisco)

16:30   Panel discussion

17:15   Closing remarks by ALLEA and FEAM