Group information

The group’s activities began at the end of the last decade of the last century and in the call for the creation of research groups of the Complutense University of Madrid, which took place in 2006; it obtained formal recognition by the Vice-Rectorate for Research. The general objectives of the group are: 1) the study of the relationship of various factors of the social and economic environment with the appearance of health problems and with the prognosis of chronic diseases, 2) the study of the relationship of place of birth with the appearance of health problems and with the prognosis of chronic diseases in the population resident in Spain, 3) the proposal and testing of hypotheses that explain these relationships, and 4) the evaluation of health interventions that aim to reduce the burden of health problems in the population as a whole, and in different socioeconomic subgroups. Factors whose relationship to health problems are investigated include the socio-economic position of individuals, the socio-economic environment of the area of residence, and immigrant versus native status. And the interventions that are subject to evaluation are those that seek to minimise the prevalence of health risk behaviours.

In order to maximise the possibilities of obtaining answers to the many research questions that arise, the group carries out various strategies: a) collaborating with national and international research groups, b) applying for research projects from different funding agencies, and c) obtaining databases of surveys and epidemiological studies from different institutions in Spain and other European countries. Through these action strategies, research has revealed important findings in the Spanish population. From a health policy point of view, these results are highly relevant, as the socio-economic pattern of presentation of some health problems and/or the factors that explain this relationship does not coincide with what is observed in other developed countries, especially in central and northern Europe. The challenge is to investigate further to find out the reasons that may lie behind these discrepancies.