International program investigates social and environmental determinants of health

Social and environmental determinants of health are the main investigation subject of a vast research program led by the Centre for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia) together with researchers from Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Ecuador. Brazilian and European investigators had already been dedicated to studies that evaluate the impacts of public policies on social inequalities in health in Brazil since 2017, with a Brazilian Deprivation Index having been launched in this context. Starting in 2022, with the inclusion of Ecuadorean researchers, the Global Health Research Unit on Social and Environmental Determinants of Health (SEDHI) was established within the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The goal is to increase the volume and diversity of the studies.

“The Research Unit has plenty of potential to contribute with investigations regarding which social and environmental policies affect the health of the population, and, in particular, of the social groups living in more vulnerable conditions”, explains the vice-coordinator of the new Unit, Mauricio Barreto, who also coordinates Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia.

According to Barreto, the studies already planned will go deeper into the previous ones carried out by Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia, and are important for the academic community, for public managers, health workers and the civil society at large, for the progress of knowledge as well as for the making of strategic decisions regarding the health of the population. Another highlight is that actions involving engagement in different social segments in the research lines will also be taken in the initiative.

The studies and research projects will be based on the use and integration of national databases that are already available. In Brazil, evaluations of the impact of the Bolsa Família program on child mortality, suicide rates, and cardiovascular diseases, among others, have been carried out using the Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia cohort of 100 million Brazilians. This cohort links data from the Cadastro Único (Cadúnico; Unified Registry) with other databases of health information systems. New knowledge regarding the social policies that have an impact on poverty reduction, health, and social and health inequalities will continue to be generated by the investigators.

The cooperation of researchers from other Latin countries and the multidisciplinary work should also be able to expand this infrastructure and the experience of database exploration, as well as the questions posed by the investigators of the new Unit. “We are excited to begin constructing this work in a collaboration established in Brazil and with the new Ecuador colleagues”, said Alastair Leyland, Unit coordinator and full professor at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

The SEDHI Research Unit was one among ten initiatives that won a recent competition against tens of other proposals and are being financed by NIHR Global Health Research Units. Each of them will be dedicated to strategic investigations for global health in the next five years.