Health and inequality

Until the beginning of the twenty-first century, health policy was neglected by most students of International Political Economy (IPE) and European Political Economy (EPE). However, due to increased transnational risks to the political and economic well-being of citizens posed by pandemics such as COVID-19 and the rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) across the globe, the determinants of health started to spill over national borders. At the same time, because of the marketization and privatization of health care, private actors started to play a more prominent role in health policy. As a result, IPE/EPE scholars started to pay more attention to health as a field of inquiry. In this Chapter, I set out the main themes defining health policy as a growing field of scholarship within EPE using four theoretical approaches: European Open Economy Politics, Growth Models EPE, Ideational EPE, and Critical and Feminist EPE. I will also discuss potential avenues for future research.