ABSTRACT
Pre-existing health inequities have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, further disadvantaging classes and groups already experiencing such inequities across time and space. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have explained the causes of, and means to address, health inequities. Nonetheless, health inequities remain extensive and, in many cases, deepening. This chapter seeks new ways of thinking about, and acting on, persistent class, gender, and racial health inequities by reviving and applying a critical political economy perspective to health and healthcare, which emphasizes the co-constitutive character of class, gender, and racial relations shaping health inequities. The study demonstrates that class relations embedded within capitalism remain the prime mover of health inequities, especially class health inequities, but that the racialized and gendered features of capitalism perpetuate the ensemble of class, gender, and racial inequities in health and healthcare. Accordingly, the way forward to secure health equity may mean any combination of smashing, dismantling, resisting, or eroding capitalism.
