abstract: 'On 20 March 2015, Professor Johan Mackenbach of the Erasmus University

  Medical Centre was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the Catholic

  University (Universite Catholique) of Louvain, Belgium, for his

  outstanding contribution to the analysis of health inequalities in

  Europe and to the development of policies intended to address them. In

  this context, a debate took place between Professor Mackenbach,

  Professor Maniquet, a well-being economist, and a representative of the

  Federal Health Ministry (Mr. Brieuc Vandamme). They were asked to debate

  on three topics. (1) socio-economic inequalities in health are not

  smaller in countries with universal welfare policies; (2) Policies needs

  to target either absolute inequalities or relative inequalities; (3) The

  focus of policies should either address the social determinants of

  health or concentrate on access to health care. The results of the

  debate by the three speakers highlighted the fact that welfare systems

  have not been able to tackle diseases of affluence. Targets for health

  policies should be set according to opportunity cost: health care is

  increasingly costly and a focus on health inequalities above all other

  inequalities runs the risk of taking a dogmatic approach to well-being.

  Health is only one dimension of well-being and policies to address

  inequality need to balance preferences between several dimensions of

  well-being. Finally, policymakers may not have that much choice when it

  comes to reducing inequality: all effective policies should be

  implemented. For example, Belgium and other European countries should

  not leave aside health protection policies that are evidence-based, in

  particular taxes on tobacco and alcohol. In his final contribution,

  Professor Mackenbach reminded the audience that politics is medicine on

  a larger scale and stated that policymakers should make more use of

  research into public health.'
affiliation: 'Lorant, V (Corresponding Author), Catholic Univ Louvain, IRSS, Inst
  Hlth \& Soc, Clos Chapelle Aux Champs,30 Bte B1-30-15, B-1200 Brussels, Belgium.

  Lorant, Vincent; D''Hoore, William, Catholic Univ Louvain, IRSS, Inst Hlth \& Soc,
  B-1200 Brussels, Belgium.'
article-number: '97'
author: Lorant, Vincent and D'Hoore, William
author-email: vincent.lorant@uclouvain.be
author_list:
- family: Lorant
  given: Vincent
- family: D'Hoore
  given: William
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1186/s12939-015-0242-3
files: []
issn: 1475-9276
journal: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH
keywords: Health inequalities; Health policies; Stakeholders
keywords-plus: 'WIDENING SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITIES; CAUSE-SPECIFIC MORTALITY; LIFE

  EXPECTANCY; EUROPEAN COUNTRIES; INCOME INEQUALITY;

  EDUCATIONAL-DIFFERENCES; POPULATION HEALTH; EXPLANATION; SMOKING; TRENDS'
language: English
month: OCT 17
number-of-cited-references: '30'
orcid-numbers: /0000-0002-2663-332X
papis_id: dfa520212cc2e413754d3af3433c9873
ref: Lorant2015johanmackenbach
times-cited: '0'
title: Johan Mackenbach, awarded an honorary doctorate for his work on health inequalities,
  in a discussion of burning issues in tackling health inequalities
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000363012100001
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '8'
volume: '14'
web-of-science-categories: Public, Environmental \& Occupational Health
year: '2015'