In this session, we focus on how health inequalities in Europe are shaped by national politics and cultural tradition. Much of the research on health inequalities focuses on how social characteristics (e.g. education, race, gender) impact health and health inequalities. While important, we argue that research has not paid enough attention to how the relationship between social location and health is embedded within a larger political and cultural context. We include five papers authored by leading scholars as well as young and emerging researchers in the area of health and health inequalities. The set of papers focus on how national characteristics shape the lives of individuals within countries, and in most cases, how these compare across countries. This kind of research moves our understanding of health inequalities by taking seriously the social context that impacts individual health and health inequalities within and across societies.