Prostaglandin EP2 Receptor and Cystoid Macular Edema in Phakic Posttrabeculectomy Eyes.

Health inequalities are a form of violence. Despite sustained interest from both academics and policy makers, little progress has been made in England in closing these inequalities in health (; ). In England, men living in the most deprived areas of the country can expect to live 10 years less than their counterparts in the least deprived areas of the country (for women, the life expectancy gap is 8 years) (). Health inequalities in England are geographic in nature, that is to say, they affect some areas more than others (). Inequalities in healthy life expectancy persist between regions, cities, and towns, with deindustrialised and coastal communities bearing some of the most dramatic inequalities in health and life expectancy relative to other places in England (; ). In this paper we draw on three existing theories of violence to extend our understanding about the ways in which health inequalities are produced and maintained, demonstrating a cycle of violence. Drawing on the concepts of structural, slow, and symbolic violence we interrogate how these concepts interact to produce and reinforce inequalities in health. We argue that health inequalities are a form of violence because they are produced by political, economic, and social systems and structures which are amenable to intervention (; ). The concept of structural violence was developed within the field of peace studies; an interdisciplinary field that draws on elements of history, sociology, political science, philosophy, and others (; ). described the concept as “the role that institutions and social practices play in preventing people from meeting their basic needs or realizing their potential” (p.390). Structural violence’s inherent focus on the structural drivers of negative health outcomes is evocative and encourages direct engagement with the fact that health inequalities are a product of social conditions. Thus, the concept has been adopted within health inequalities literature to describe the ways through which government policy leads to ill-health and death (; ; ). Slow violence originates from the field of environmental humanities and is rooted in postcolonial ecological research (). introduced the term to highlight the gradual, often invisible environmental degradation that disproportionately affects marginalised communities, particularly in the Global South. The concept of structural violence as constructed by has an inherent temporal element due to its emphasis on understanding how past injustices influence present living conditions, but it is often implicit and not directly examined (; , ). Slow violence builds on the concept of structural violence by placing greater emphasis on the tendency for violence to go on for an extended period of time without notice (; ). While the concept has most frequently been used to describe the impacts of environmental degradation on human health (, ), it has also been applied to studies examining the impacts of neoliberal economic policies on urban environments (; ; ). The concept of slow violence is significant because it highlights forms of harm that are often overlooked in mainstream discourse due to their protracted and diffuse nature.