Challenges for research, policy and practice in the field of Roma health

Excerpt

In past centuries, our society developed rapidly, and improvement across all social determinants of health, including increasing quality of health care, led to better health status and higher life expectancy of the populations all over the world. These changes, however, were not equally transferred to the whole society, and marginalised groups, such as Roma (especially those living in marginalised communities), have not benefitted from them at the same level as majority populations. In recent decades interventions focused on “closing the gap” have been introduced but seemingly have not brought the expected extent of results when it comes to marginalised Roma communities (FRA 2018; Sandor et al. 2017). It would be rather unreasonable to expect, even with the best of will and intentions, that any measures or interventions could possibly reverse the effect of centuries of continuous and systematic exclusion and close the gap in a single generation. The causes of social exclusion are deeply rooted in a society, just as strategies related to adaptation to it are deeply rooted among marginalised Roma. The complexity of the issues related to the health status of marginalised Roma requires vision and multisectoral participatory solutions. Therefore, coordinated, systematic and continuous inclusion efforts involving target populations are seen by experts as the most feasible solution to the consequences of continuous and systematic exclusion. How to achieve the best possible results from such efforts is the “million-dollar question” that could and should be answered by high-quality research. …