THE POOR MAY BE ALWAYS WITH US, BUT HOW DO WE RESPOND TO THE CALL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN HEALTH?

In this issue, we have a blend of culture and narrative, a focus on maternal and child health, and some substantial research offerings.

Starting with the culture, in Gallery this month we have a cry from the heart from El Salvador, where social conditions have been going from bad to worse. The resulting poverty has had predictable effects on health. Espinoza asks how soon this insanity will end in the inability to govern. And from New Zealand, Howden-Chapman and Kawachi dip back into 19th century literature to tap into the richness of the descriptions of poverty and social conditions that mobilised the masses to claim some health dividend from what was being monopolised by those at the top of the pile. If “statistics are people with the tears washed off”, literature provides an opportunity to contextualise those tears. What are the equivalents today of those powerful novels by the likes of Zola, Dickens, and Hardy. Are our contemporary novelists up to the task, or are Soaps the contemporary …