Developing the policy response to inequities in health: a global perspective

This chapter presents a policy-oriented overview of the whole process of challenging inequities in health-from ethics to action. It identifies ways of challenging inequities in health and highlights some practical applications of the approaches advocated, drawn from all the chapters in the book. It suggests a way forward toward raising awareness of the issue and stimulating policy makers at various levels to take action. Given the global nature of the subject of this book, the chapter incorporates an important section on how the international agencies could work together to challenge these unacceptable inequities in health. This issue deserves to be at the top of the public health agenda in these early years of the 21st century.