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Objective: This paper focuses on the research groups registered in the Colciencias platform from January 2005 to April 2012 in order to analyze their ability to conduct research on the social determinants of health (SDH) as well as the opinion of the coordinators of such groups. Methodology: a descriptive observational study focusing on the Colciencias Scienti platform (which holds information on Colombian research groups) and particularly on aspects such as the groups, the researchers and the SDH-related research products. The study was complemented with questionnaires, focus groups and a study on the national system for research. In addition, researchers signed an informed consent form before participating in the study. Results: the 65 groups registered in Colciencias' Health Sciences Program (6%) have published 123 products in the form of scientific papers written in Spanish (48%). Moreover, the predominant studies are those conducted with demographically relevant populations, focusing on health systems, health inequity and prevalent diseases, and based on empirical and analytical methods, as well as the network projects of national scope. The difficulties identified were: scarce political and institutional support for local and national research on the SDH and reduced interaction with policy makers and with other groups speaking other languages. Conclusions: studies based on the approach proposed by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2005 were predominant. Recommendations: it is essential to strengthen the ability to conduct research on the SDH using different approaches-particularly the Latin American approaches-; likewise collaborative network projects should be developed and collective actions should be taken which affect the health research policies for equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion on global justice, i.e. the discussion on the transformation of the economic and political relationships between the richest and poorest societies, is vital for public health today for two reasons. First, because there is a well-documented increase in health inequalities which resulted from the process of economic globalization; and second, because two approaches for managing these health inequalities have become particularly visible and are fully related to the field of work of social health: the social determinants of health approach, proposed by the WHO, and the social determination of health approach proposed by Latin American Social Medicine. In this sense, this paper aims to analyze the views on global justice that each of these approaches adopts as well as their proposals for managing the health inequities that are generated in each case. We concluded that the texts of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health do not question or demand a change in the global economic and political relationships, whereas Latin American Social Medicine considers that, in order to advance in the elimination of global inequalities, an ethical questioning and a global restructuring of the power relationships are mandatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]