Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

An evidence base for tackling inequalities in health: distraction or necessity?

Marks, Linda

Authors

Linda Marks



Abstract

Evidence of effectiveness is prominent as a basis for decision-making. Addressing inequalities is a key UK policy objective to be implemented through national and local strategies. Tensions which emerge in adopting an evidence-based approach for tackling inequalities in health are only partly due to limitations of the evidence base in this area. Three research and development projects on different aspects of addressing the inequalities agenda, carried out in the North East of England between 2000 and 2002, explored how local decision-makers tackled inequalities in health and how this issue was reflected in local strategies. These projects illustrate the breadth of this agenda, different ways in which it can be conceptualised and prioritised at a local level and barriers to its implementation. It is argued that evidence of effective interventions plays a relatively small part in decision-making at a local level. In order to address inequalities in health, greater attention should be directed to ways in which the inequalities agenda is embedded within local monitoring and decision-making processes.

Citation

Marks, L. (2006). An evidence base for tackling inequalities in health: distraction or necessity?. Critical Public Health, 16(1), 61-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581590600602195

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Mar 1, 2006
Deposit Date May 10, 2007
Journal Critical Public Health
Print ISSN 0958-1596
Electronic ISSN 1469-3682
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 1
Pages 61-72
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/09581590600602195
Keywords AIDS & HIV, Geography, Mental health, Public health, Risk, Social medicine, Social policy.