Exploring the impact of stigma on the health of inclusion health groups: a qualitative scoping review and critical analysis

This review demonstrates that stigma contributes to health inequalities by limiting healthcare access and shaping negative health outcomes. There is an urgent need for research that investigates stigma's long-term health effects and moves beyond individual-level interventions to address broader structural forces perpetuating health inequalities. Future work should more explicitly engage with the concept of structural and political stigma, recognising that public health research must interrogate the upstream determinants, such as policy, governance, and social organisation, that sustain exclusion and health inequity.