Transcending the Known in Public Health Practice: The Inequality Paradox: The Population Approach and Vulnerable Populations
Katherine L. Frohlich, PhD and
Louise Potvin, PhD
The authors are with the Lea Roback Centre for Research on Health Inequalities, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal, and le Groupe de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Santé, Montreal, Quebec.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Katherine L. Frohlich, PhD, CP 6128 succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada (e-mail: katherine.frohlich{at}umontreal.ca).
Using the concept of vulnerable populations, we examine howdisparities in health may be exacerbated by population-approachinterventions.
We show, from an etiologic perspective, how life-course epidemiology,the concentration of risk factors, and the concept of fundamentalcauses of diseases may explain the differential capacity, throughoutthe risk-exposure distribution, to transform resources providedthrough population-approach interventions into health. Froman intervention perspective, we argue that population-approachinterventions may be compromised by inconsistencies betweenthe social and cultural assumptions of public health practitionersand targeted groups.
We propose some intervention principles to mitigate the healthdisparities associated with population-approach interventions.
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