Food & Health Alliance

Closing the Gap: Strategies for Action to Tackle Health Inequalities in the EU initiative

The project report presents an overview of the 21 EU Member States or health promotion agencies within the EU states are currently doing to tackle health inequalities, and further actions that they plan to take. It also includes a series of key conclusions and recommendations for priority actions in this area.

Reducing socio-economic health inequalities is one of the main challenges within the public health sector in Europe. It is, nevertheless, unclear what is known and being done in European partner countries; how do policy processes impact the health gap and how should effective interventions be shaped?

The aim of ‘Closing the Gap’ (2004-2007) was to develop a European knowledge base and infrastructure in order to implement and strengthen strategies and actions to reduce health inequalities at different levels:

• General: To develop a clear and coherent definition of reducing health inequalities, through dialogue at EU, national and local level.
• EU policy level: To identify policy processes initiated by the European Institutions and related agencies that can have an impact on the reduction of health inequalities and to integrate or strengthen the health aspects of these policy developments.
• National policy level: To analyse and map policies, structures and actions being taken to tackle health inequalities in participating countries, and to share information and expertise in fields that are key to tackling health inequalities. These fields include awareness raising, health impact assessment (HIA) and health in other policy areas, developing evidence and evaluation, and supporting EU regions. Each participating country will apply what they have learned to develop and implement their own Strategy for Action to tackle health inequalities.
• Local level: To bring together Good Practices on local policy measures and interventions that are effective and transferable to other European countries, through a European Directory of Good Practices to reduce health inequalities.
• Infrastructure: To establish and maintain a consortium of 21 national public health and health promotion agencies working on the reduction of health inequalities in Europe and to enhance joint working with the EU Institutions in this field.

The project site includes a range of reports and papers, including an overview of the situation in the member states, with recommendations for priority actions.