Tackling Health Inequalities - Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities
This information can also available in pdf format (122k)
A Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities led by the Minister for Public Health has been established to identify and prioritise practical actions to reduce the most significant and widening health inequalities.
Our Objectives
The Task Force will base its proposals on emerging scientific evidence of how deprivation and other forms of chronic stress lead to poor health, starting in children's very early years; and seek to ensure that its proposals address three objectives:
- To reduce factors in the physical and social environments in Scotland that act to perpetuate health inequalities;
- To build the resilience and capacity of individuals, families and communities to improve their health; and
- To enhance the contribution that public services make to reducing health inequalities.
Our Priorities
- An emphasis on supporting families and children in the very early years;
- Enhancing mental health, wellbeing and resilience;
- The importance of education and skills, income and employment status as factors underlying inequalities in health; and
- A multi-agency approach in which public, private and third sectors work together, with strong Government leadership.
Delivering reductions in health inequalities will require a continuous improvement approach, with clear definition and performance management of outcomes.
All Government policies will need to be assessed for their impact on health and demonstrate how they are contributing to reducing health inequalities. Progress is to be achieved within existing resources. This may require some realignment of resources in order to focus on reducing inequalities in health. Community planning partnerships will be vital in delivery locally.
Above all, staff and services need to engage the individuals and communities they work with if they are to build the resilience and capacity that are necessary for change.
Our Principles
- Improving the whole range of circumstances and environments that offer opportunities to improve people's life circumstances and hence their health.
- Reducing people's exposure to factors in the physical and social environment that cause stress, are damaging to health and wellbeing, and lead to health inequalities.
- Addressing the inter-generational factors that risk perpetuating Scotland's health inequalities, particularly focussing on supporting a good start in life for all children in Scotland.
- Engaging individuals, families and communities most at risk of poor health in services and decisions relevant to their health, and promoting clear ownership of the issues by all involved.
- Delivering health and other services that are both universal and appropriately prioritised to meet the needs of those most at risk of poor health, and that seek to prevent problems arising, as well as addressing them if they do.
- Basing current and future action on the available evidence and adding to that evidence of the future, through introducing new policies and interventions in ways which allow for evaluating progress and success.
- Ensuring that the range of actions we take now will achieve both short and long-term impact and will address foreseeable future challenges.