The review of interventions is based on a life-cycle
approach. This analytical framework, represented in figure
1.3, is based on the realization that health inequities
and inequality in general vary with age, which might
be related to the different health-related risks and
outcomes that each stage of life entails. The downward
pointing blocks in figure 1.3 show on which part of the
life cycle, which is dichotomized simply as childhood or
adulthood, the reviewed interventions focused. A life-cycle
approach, which emphasizes the role of the accumulation
of disadvantage over the life course, is therefore helpful to
better understand how varied factors operate at different
stages of life and contribute to the development of future
health inequalities. In particular, there is wide consensus
on the relevance that childhood can bear, as the period
when most lifelong inequities affecting health start.