ABSTRACT
There has been an enormous amount of research into the relationship between the social conditions in which a citizen lives and the health of the citizen. A short historical diversion will highlight the name of Chadwick, whose report in 1842 on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population paved the way for a national system of water supply and sewage disposal that radically influenced the health of many Victorians. The evolution of the legislative changes developed into a National Health Service for all citizens that has often been used as evidence of the movement away from the situation in which a citizen’s social origins were the most likely determinant of their life expectancy and their health. A National Health Service was seen as being a sign of progress towards achieving the ideal that the state, in undertaking some responsibility for citizens’ health, was taking a step towards the removal of social class, sex, ethnicity or any other social variable as an influence on a citizen’s chances for a long and healthy life, and a movement towards the goal of improving the health and life chances for all citizens in a fair and equal society.
