Kontakt 2014, 16(1):e39-e43 | DOI: 10.1016/j.kontakt.2014.01.001

Social determinants of health in the Romani populationSocial Sciences - Review article

Hana Hajduchováa,*, David Urbanb
a Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra ošetřovatelství a porodní asistence
b Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra sociální práce

The Czech Republic has an official policy of providing equal access to health facilities for all citizens. However, Romani communities, mainly where they are inhabitants of socially excluded localities, have worse access to medical and health care than other citizens. This has a number consequences in the form of a worsened health conditions, incidence of chronic diseases and also a lack of preventive activities in the area. The aim of our survey study is to describe the current findings in the sphere of social determinants of health among the Romani minority in the Czech Republic. The survey study mainly presents the results of three research projects carried out in the years 2001-09, focused on the area of subjective and objective perception of the health state of Romani respondents, although we also used data processed by a content analysis of documents obtained by means of a search relating to the topic. The results of the projects described correspond in the following points: the subjective perception of their health state by Romani respondents is quite positive; the most often problematic areas include psychosomatic cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus of type II; the factors of lifestyle, especially smoking, physical inactivity and inappropriate nutrition have a significant influence on the occurrence of these diseases. Despite the relevance of the health topic in Romani communities there is a relatively small number of studies dealing with this and other relevant issues. On the base of content analysis of available projects we have come to the results that there is quite a big contradiction between subjective and objective evaluation of the health state of the Romani population.

Keywords: social determinants of health; Roma communities; lifestyle; health care

Received: December 18, 2012; Accepted: October 10, 2013; Published: March 21, 2014  Show citation

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Hajduchová H, Urban D. Social determinants of health in the Romani population. Kontakt. 2014;16(1):e39-43. doi: 10.1016/j.kontakt.2014.01.001.
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