Uwe Helmert

TL;DR: International variations in social gradients in smoking, which are likely to be related to differences between countries in their stage of the smoking epidemic, may have contributed to the socioeconomic differences in mortality from ischaemic heart disease being greater in northern European countries.

TL;DR: The relatively favourable trends in the Nordic countries suggest that these countries' welfare states were able to buffer many of the adverse effects of economic crises on the health of disadvantaged groups.

TL;DR: Widening education inequalities in smoking related diseases may be seen in several European countries in the future as more insight into effective strategies specifically targeting the smoking behaviour of low educated groups is gained from examining the tobacco control policies of the UK and Italy over this period.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess whether there are variations between 11 Western European countries with respect to the size of differences in self reported morbidity between people with high and low educational levels.

TL;DR: The persistence of international differences in average height into the youngest birth cohorts indicates a high degree of continuity of differences between countries in childhood living conditions, and suggests that socio-economic differences in Childhood living conditions will continue to contribute to socio- economic differences in health at adult ages.