Capitalogenic disease: social determinants in focus | BMJ Global Health

Capitalogenic disease: social determinants in focus | BMJ Global Health: Scholarship on the social determinants of health and disease has become firmly established over the past several decades. This school of thought has created space for academics and health professionals to consider the structural factors that may produce ill health, generate health inequalities and prevent access to healthcare or other goods and services necessary for human welfare.1 Research on social determinants has been developed through attention to ‘structural violence’,2 ‘commercial determinants’3 and the ‘causes of the causes’ of disease.4 These are useful analytical developments. But terms such as structures, commerce and so on are generic descriptors, and it may be useful to further specify the particular political and economic systems that are at stake. This includes paying attention to capitalism and dynamics of capital accumulation. Given that capitalism prevails in nearly every country, and organises the world economy, it seems necessary to develop analytical frameworks that can help us understand and assess its implications for health outcomes, which have been described in existing literature.5 It is important to clarify what we mean by capitalism. People often assu