Taking responsibility to address inequalities in health

Abstract

For many people, access to the prerequisites for health outlined in the preamble to the Ottawa Charter: peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity, continues to be a distant dream. Despite ‘major efforts by governments and international financial institutions in the latter half of the twentieth century to reduce poverty, primarily by promoting economic growth, we have more poor people today than when we started’. Many of the population health gains that have been achieved over the past 150 years are in danger of being reversed. This article describes ways in which public health practitioners can take a greater personal responsibility for reducing inequalities in health.