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The role of nurses in addressing health inequities in the UK

Professor Vanessa Heaslip - Professor of Nursing and Healthcare Equity School of Nursing and Society, Lead Professor for Nursing and Midwifery and Interim Director for the Centre for Applied Health Research, University of Salford Donna Pearce - Lecturer in Children and Young People’s Nursing, University of Salford, Salford First published:
Health inequality or inequity?

In healthcare, the term health ‘inequality’ is often used to describe differences that exist between communities in terms of health access, status and outcomes. However, focusing on equality (treating people the same) is problematic, for example, sending two people a letter about a forthcoming appointment (equality), yet one of them cannot read. As such, we need to move towards a focus on equity, where we consider and address individual needs (such as literacy in the case above) to ensure that no-one is left behind (United Nations, 2015). In order to achieve equity, we need to consider the wider social determinants of health including income/wealth, food, education, water/sanitation, employment, health care, and the built/natural environment (Marmot and Bell, 2018).

Social exclusion and health inequity

There is a link between social exclusion (degree to which people able to participate in society) and inequity, affecting

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Professor Vanessa Heaslip

Donna Pearce