Social determinants of health at a pediatric age in a hospital setting: a systematic review

• Autor(a) principal: Macedo, Mário André
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25758/set.1981
• topic: Desigualdades em saúde; Determinantes sociais da saúde; Pediatria; Health inequalities; Social determinants of health; Pediatrics

Introduction – Health inequalities are recognized as a public health problem. The relationship between social determinants and health inequalities is a robust finding. While in adulthood, these socioeconomic inequalities become manifest in terms of general health status, the situation is less clear in childhood and adolescence in a hospital setting. It was then undertaken a systematic in order to contribute towards a better knowledge of the subject. Methods – Based on the PRISMA guidelines, the following MeSH terms were used: ‘social class’, ‘pediatric’, ‘hospital’, ‘emergency treatment’, ‘socioeconomic factor’, and ‘healthcare disparities’. The search was performed on articles published between 1 January 2000 and 31 August 2016, on PubMed, MEDLINE, and on the database from Cochrane. Review and opinion articles were excluded, as well as articles dealing with issues of access to healthcare. It was performed a qualitative and quantitative description of the results. Results – Seventeen publications were selected all reporting observational analyses, most of the using retrospective data. These publications showed strong evidence for health inequalities, such as the length of stay or severity of illness upon admission to the intensive care unit, and the social determinants of health in the pediatric age in a hospital setting. Conclusions – Although the same relationship has already been demonstrated in a community setting, it is necessary to elaborate on more studies that relate socioeconomic status and health inequalities in a hospital context. It is important to deepen the studies in these areas, in order to identify the most significant social determinants and vulnerable populations, to better plan health care, and tackle the health inequalities.