Social Environment

A person’s social environment includes their living and working conditions, income level, educational background and the communities they are part of. All these have a powerful effect on health. The big differences in social environments within Europe contribute to wide disparities in health. There are big gaps in life expectancy and disease rates between rich and poor, the well and the poorly educated and manual workers and professionals.

Many different EU initiatives are under way to improve the social environment. Among the most important are schemes to: create more and better jobs, improve the health, safety and quality of working environments, ensure access to social benefits for people moving between countries, promote research, and provide funding to develop the economies in poorer parts of the EU.

Action to reduce health inequalities is an important objective of the EU Health Strategy adopted in 2007 and the EU Health Programme 2008-2013. The long term objectives are to: bring general levels of health closer to those of the most advantaged, ensure the health needs of the most disadvantaged are fully addressed accelerate improvements in public health in countries and regions with greater rates of sickness.

The EU also aims to develop a European health information system to enable a much more in depth understanding of health inequalities within the EU.

Links to the EU activities

Public health
- Socio-economic determinants of health
  EU policy areas relating to socio-economic factors and the reduction of health inequalities

Social conditions
- The social inclusion process
  EU policies and initiatives for preventing and combating poverty and social exclusion
- Coordination of social security schemes
  EU initiatives offering practical solutions to cross-border problems in the field of social security
- Anti-discrimination and relations with civil society
  The rights and obligations of employers and employees under EU law as regards equal treatment
- Equality between women and men
  EU law and action promoting gender equality in Europe
- Social Agenda
  EU initiatives and action to modernise labour markets and welfare systems

Working conditions
- Health & safety at work
  EU policy and initiatives promoting healthy workplaces
- ESF - European Social Fund
  ESF initiatives to combat unemployment
- EQUAL
  Initiative to combat discrimination and exclusion based on sex, race, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation

Economic development
- ERDF - The European Regional Development Fund
  Development areas covered by the ERDF for creating and maintaining jobs

Research
- Socio-economic research
  EU research programmes and activities in the socio-economic field
- Poverty-related diseases
  EU research to combat poverty-related diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis

Social environment
- Population below poverty line
  Unemployment rates representing unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force

European Health Information
- Employment
  Data on unemployment as an important indicator of socio-economic differences in health
- Poverty, income distribution
  Indicators of socio-economic differences in health
- Health Inequalities
  Data on socioeconomic inequalities in health

Statistics
- Population and social conditions
  Data and statistics on population and social conditions in Europe

European Commission
Health-EU. The Public Health Portal of the European Union

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