• Melissa Sweet

16 February 2010The British government has shown some of the vision we lack in health policy, writes Melissa Sweet in The Drum

YOU MAY NOT have heard of it, but an important report was released in England last week that should be required reading for all politicians, bureaucrats and others with a concern for the community's health. Tony Abbott included.

Called Fair Society, Healthy Lives, it was commissioned to provide the UK Government with advice on how to reduce the health gap between those who are better off and those who are not so well off. It is also known as the Marmot Review because its lead author is Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who chaired the World Health Organisation's Commission on Social Determinants of Health.

The report describes the massive social, economic and personal costs of health inequalities, and also lays out wide-ranging strategies for creating a fairer distribution of good health across society. It does not focus only on disadvantaged groups, and emphasises that tackling health inequalities will produce benefits across the board...

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