Advancing the Research Infrastructure for Cross-National Comparative Research on Social Inequalities in Health

Exploratory Workshop Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Time: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge (directions)

Overview and goals of the workshop:

The goal of the workshop is to explore the feasibility of launching a “Comparative Health Inequality Study” (CHIS).  Currently, cross-national comparative research on inequalities in health is severely hindered by a lack of comparable, individual-level data on population health.  In contrast, research on the macro-level, institutional determinants of income inequality has progressed quite far, largely due to the high-quality, comparable, individual-level, remote-access data provided by the Luxembourg Income Study (now known as LIS).

Can we imagine an analogous infrastructure for cross-nationally comparable health data?  The development of such an infrastructure faces several challenges.  Thus, the goals of the workshop are to:

(1) consider conceptual problems in developing comparable measures of health,
(2) identify ethical challenges created by the dissemination of sensitive data,
(3) identify barriers to procuring individual-level survey data, and
(4) extend the lessons learned by the LIS to the domain of population health.

Faculty Convener:
Jason Beckfield, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

Agenda

9:30-10:00       Coffee and welcome

10:00-10:30     The need for a comparative health inequality study, presented by Jason Beckfield, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard

10:30-11:00     Goals for the workshop (Beckfield)

11:00-12:00     Overview of the LIS: history, objectives, funding, presented by Janet Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and Director of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) ) Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

12:00-1:00       Lunch

1:00-2:00         Research Core of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presented by Jocelyn Finlay, Research Core Director, Harvard Center for the Population and Development Studies

2:00-2:30         The EU Working Group on Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health, presented by Johan Mackenbach, Department Chair and Professor of Public Health, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

2:30-3:00         Possible Sources of Data, presented by Jason Beckfield

3:00-3:30         How the LIS works, presented by Thierry Kruten, Director of Operations and IT Director, Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

3:30-5:00         Marching Orders, presented by Jason Beckfield

Speakers and participants:

Jocelyn Finlay, Research Associate in Global Health and Population and Director of the Research core at the Center for Population Research and Development Studies, Harvard School of Public Health
Janet Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology and Director, Luxembourg Income Study Center, City University of New York Graduate Center
Nancy Krieger, Professor of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health
Thierry Kruten, Director of Operations and IT Director, Luxembourg Income Study Center
Johan Mackenbach, Professor of Public Health and Chair, Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands