The remnants of the colonial and apartheid era are evident in the South African health system’s persistently higher levels of injury, mental health problems, disease and mortality amongst the poor and marginalized—mediated through a wide range of social determinants including environmental health factors such as hygiene, access to clean water, clean air and adequate sanitation, violent crime and trauma, occupational risk, alcohol abuse and tobacco dependence.

In low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of tuberculosis (TB), a large proportion of people who are tested for TB do not return to the health facility to collect their test results and initiate treatment, thus putting themselves at increased risk of adverse outcomes.

We present evidence of how researchers from developing countries are represented in three areas of research: conference presentations, articles in journals, and citations. We find that the bulk of research on development and development policies in the South is conducted by researchers from the North.

Trends in socioeconomic-related health inequalities is a particularly pertinent topic in South Africa where years of systematic discrimination under apartheid bequeathed a legacy of inequalities in health outcomes. We use three nationally representative datasets to examine trends in income- and race-related inequalities in life expectancy (LE) and health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) since the beginning of the millennium.