[EQ] Priorities for research on equity and health

Priorities for research on equity and health:
Implications for global and national priority setting and the role of WHO to take the health equity research agenda forward

Final Report – November 2010
World Health Organization (WHO) Task Force on Research Priorities for Equity in Health

            Available online PDF [43p.] at: http://bit.ly/hX0t68

“……….This recent paper, commissioned by the Equity Analysis and Research Unit of WHO, aims to stimulate further thinking, debate and refinement of strategic approaches focusing WHO support and collaborations to advance global research on equity and health. It sets forth broad parameters for a global research agenda on equity and health, taking stock of contemporary efforts, stakeholder discussions, relevance to Member States and expected innovations. …”

Recommend an agenda for research in the following four distinct but interrelated areas:

(1)     global factors and processes that affect health equity;

(2)     structures and processes that differentially affect people's chances to be healthy within a given society;

(3)     health system factors that affect health equity; and

(4)     policy interventions to reduce health inequity, that is how to influence (1)-(3) effectively, for example by identifying policy and programme interventions with the potential to reduce inequities in the determinants of health and health services and opportunities to transfer the findings of research to potential users with maximum effectiveness.

“….In each of these areas, much is already known, but much remains to be understood. The discussion that follows provides a brief overview of the research agenda and identifies several examples of priority research questions, in general terms. The lists of research questions are far from exhaustive, although we are confident that we have identified many of the most important ones.

The reader should keep in mind that the document’s focus is on priority research needs, which do not necessarily correspond to the most urgent policy responses based on what we already know. It is expected that in the shaping and implementation of research policies, the specific context (whether sub-national, national, regional or global) will place greater urgency on some themes….”

Authors:

Piroska Östlin (Task Force coordinator and core author), Regional Director’s Office, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

Ted Schrecker (core author), Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Canada

Ritu Sadana (core author), Director's Office, Department of Health Systems Financing, Health Systems and Services Cluster, World Health Organization

Josiane Bonnefoy, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile

Lucy Gilson, University of Cape Town, South Africa and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom

Clyde Hertzman, Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), University of British Columbia, Canada

Michael P. Kelly, Centre for Public Health Excellence, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, United Kingdom

Tord Kjellstrom, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Ronald Labonté, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Canada

Olle Lundberg, Centre for Health Equity Studies, Stockholm, Sweden

Carles Muntaner, Social Equity and Health Section, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Jennie Popay, Division of Health Research, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

Gita Sen, Indian Institute of Management, Centre for Public Policy, Bangalore, India

Ziba Vaghri, Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), University of British Columbia, Canada….”

 

 

 

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