Health Equity: What We're Learning From the World
Solutions from abroad can inspire action for health equity in the United States.
When it comes to advancing health equity, good ideas have no borders.
Like in the United States, countries around the world are grappling with how to make sure everyone in their communities has a fair and just opportunity to live the healthiest life possible. Advancing health equity is emerging as a top priority for European nations, across the Americas, and in other countries like Singapore, Australia, and South Africa.
In the United States, we can look to examples of how our global counterparts are tackling equity in a variety of areas that affect health and wellbeing from poverty, to structural racism and colonialism, to gender inequality, to social injustice, to Indigenous people’s rights.
We’re learning from these efforts, asking questions such as:
- What programs and policies have worked in other countries?
- How are other nations measuring progress?
- How could these approaches be adapted or inspire new approaches in the United States to achieve health equity and build a national Culture of Health?
Three reports offer insights, lessons, and solutions that we can adapt and learn from to advance health equity in the United States. RWJF supported development of the Healthy, Prosperous Lives for All and Learning from the World reports and will support implementation of recommendations in the Just Societies: Health Equity and Dignified Lives report.
Achieving Health Equity
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Explore the Reports
Healthy, Prosperous Lives for All: The European Health Equity Status Report
The WHO Regional Office for Europe identifies five conditions needed to build healthier, more equitable communities and recommends policy actions to address each condition.
Just Societies: Health Equity and Dignified Lives
The Pan American Health Organization’s Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas looks at the root causes of health inequalities in North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean and what steps governments and other sectors can take to address them.
Learning from the World: Global Strategies for Improving Health Equity
A global scan prepared for RWJF by FHI360 explores how seven different countries or regions (Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Singapore, and South Africa) are advancing health equity at home.
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