Regnbågsmodellen som ett pedagogiskt verktyg för förståelse av determinanter för hälsa och stöd vid arbete för jämlik hälsa

Abstract

The rainbow model, which has been used to facilitate understanding of what affects health and disease, was first formed in the sand in a garden in Copenhagen in the 1970s. This complex issue was described in a simple symbol in the Skaraborg Health Plan of 1970: three concentric circles, where the innermost circle represented the individual and their health problems, the middle circle the local environment and its health risks, and the outermost circle as support for the broader societal environment. The dimensions of the health plan are based on a circular model (The Concentric Zone Model) published in 1925 by sociologist Burgess within the Chicago School. The rainbow model was further developed in textbooks on Social Medicine and Public Health Science by Studentlitteratur in the 1980s. The Swedish model, called Haglund & Svanström, was translated into English and spread internationally from the early 1990s under the name The Dahlgren & Whitehead model. In 2015, the rainbow model was recognized as one of the most important social science innovations of the past 50 years by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of suggestions for revisions to the rainbow model in the international scientific literature. In Sweden, the rainbow model has been further developed as an important tool in public health work, primarily through the work of the Östgöta Commission from 2012 to 2014 to address health inequalities in Östergötland. New knowledge about health inequality and its causes that has emerged since the rainbow model was introduced in the 1970s has been integrated into an updated rainbow model. Additional elements were incorporated: one for the individual’s socioeconomic status and one for psychological resources, with a heart at the center as a symbol to illustrate psychobiological vulnerability mechanisms.