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Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

Home Blog Housing Greater inequalty = worse pandemic: Troublesome warning as world braces for possible flu pandemic

Michael Shapcott

Greater inequalty = worse pandemic: Troublesome warning as world braces for possible flu pandemic

There is a "significant and robust" link between income inequality and HIV. The greater the inequality, the worse the HIV pandemic. This is the troubling conclusion of a powerful new research study released today by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth of the United Nation's Development Programme.

As the world is bracing for a possible swine flu pandemic, the IPC warns that its latest study demonstrates that "the link is another illustration of how unequal societies with large social divides pay a price in terms of public health." The IPC study on the impact of health inequities on a major public health issue raises the question of whether pandemic flu planning will meet the needs of lower-income Canadians.

 

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Michael Shapcott

About Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott is Director, Affordable Housing and Social Innovation at Wellesley Institute. Michael has worked extensively in Toronto, in many parts of Canada, nationally and internationally on social innovation, the non-profit sector, civic engagement, housing and housing rights, poverty, social exclusion, urban health and health equity. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading community-based housing and homelessness experts. He is currently on secondment to the Princes' Charities Canada.

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We would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

Revised by the Elders Circle (Council of Aboriginal Initiatives) on November 6, 2014

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