Scope and target of equity and diversity working group

Dear all,
We need to reach a consensus on the scope and target of our efforts in Equity and Diversity working group. Gabrielle refereed to it in her list of questions "what kind of inequities do we want to focus on? in which contexts? in which countries?"Here are my perspectives.

Considering the international nature of our group I suggest to target the equity in international level. I mean not to limit ourselves only to some countries. I think we can examine equity and diversity in terms of gender and nationality. They type of equity I believe can be the main focus is equity in access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research. We can can contribute to providing answers to following questions:

1.Do male and female health researchers have equal access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research, nationally and internationally? How can we tackle this issue?

2. Do health researchers form developed and developing countries have have equal access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research internationally? How can we tackle this issue?

Looking forward your comments

Nastaran

Reflections from James

Hi Nastaran,
Just thought I'd up-date you on the health equity context in Australia. There is a National Health Equity Network which has just been established - with priorities set at the recent Population Health Congress. I have been involved on the working group from this end. Currently this is unfunded but has a small working group across state/territory jursidictions. We are hoping to access funding to employ a co-ordinator in due course. the best contact for more information (or to be part of the network) is Mark Boyd mboyd@vichealth.vic.gov.au The federal government recently announced the establishment of the National Indigenous Health Equalities Council Flinders University recently hosted the Fulbright Symposium (a joint initiative between Australia and the US). There was a strong presence of Commissioners on the Commission of the Social Determinants Health (and lots of discussion about health equity, social inclusion, etc). Will forward the report if/when it becomes available.There was also an Emerging Leaders Group - it would be good to link them (perhaps as a partner) to ISECn and the Equity Working Group. Again, I'll try and do this in due course. The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health are scheduled to release their final report on the 28th August. It would be good if the Equity Working Group could respond to this report via the IUHPE Board. Not sure if you've seen this edition of the Health Promotion Journal of Australia (from late 2006) but thought it may be of interest.

James Smith

News

Hi Dear all,

This is to announce that our weblog has been set up. Please feel free to comment. My first suggestion is to add the current resources and links concerned with equity and/or diversity to our weblog.
Nastaran