ABSTRACT
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that primarily affects the liver. Without treatment it can cause advanced liver disease (cirrhosis), liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC]) and sometimes death (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [NICE] 2006). Infection disproportionately affects people from the poorest sections of society, who ‘. . . have not succeeded in education, have little work experience, lack supportive relationships and often suffer with poor mental health . . .’ (National Treatment Agency [NTA] 2012: 4). Thus, the lifestyle of those susceptible to infection is embedded in the wider social, environmental and economic determinants of health (Dahlgren and Whitehead 2007). Although hepatitis C is a global health problem, the focus of this chapter is on the UK.
