27 Mar 2025The Health Equity Evidence Centre (HEEC) have developed a bespoke series of evidence briefs summarising evidence on ‘what works’ to address health and care inequalities.
Several of the reports were coauthored by NIHR ARC North Thames researcher Dr Danielle Lamb – who is part of our Research Partnership Team and Senior Research Fellow at in the Department of Primary Care and Population Health at University College London (UCL).
The guides were commissioned by NHS England to summarise current research and support their responsibilities to deliver equitable health care.
Led by Dr John Ford (Director of HEEC), Dr Lamb and colleagues also developed a guide highlighting 7 promising high-impact interventions that emerged from this review, which are:
- Allocate funding proportionate to need
- Roll out community health workers
- Introduce peer-led interventions
- Implement cervical self-screening
- Deliver tailored health interventions in places of worship
- Screen for social needs
- Co-locate welfare advisors in general practice
Speaking about the work, Dr Ford said:
“We have decades of evidence describing the problem of health and care inequalities, but policy makers and practitioners still struggle to know what to do about them. These evidence briefs help the NHS and its partners to understand what works to address inequalities. There are no silver bullets, but there are evidence-informed interventions, programmes and principles which are fundamental to building a more equitable society.”
You can explore the collection of evidence review below, or visit the HEEC website for their full hub of evidence briefs.
The series contained 11 evidence briefs on what works in health equity:
- Health and care interventions to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds in returning to work https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-health-and-care-interventions-to-support-people-from-disadvantaged-backgrounds-in-returning-to-work/
- Leveraging Quality Improvement to address health and care inequalities https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-leveraging-quality-improvement-to-address-health-and-care-inequalities/
- Empowering health care staff to address health inequalities https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-empowering-health-care-staff-to-address-health-inequalities/
- How health care organisations can reduce inequalities in social determinants of health in their role as anchor institutions https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-how-health-care-organisations-can-reduce-inequalities-in-social-determinants-of-health-in-their-role-as-anchor-institutions/
- Community engagement and empowerment to address health inequalities https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-community-engagement-and-empowerment-to-address-health-inequalities/
- Payment mechanisms to improve prevention spending in health care settings https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-payment-mechanisms-to-improve-prevention-spending-in-health-care-settings/
- Funding models to address health inequalities https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-funding-models-to-address-health-inequalities/
- What works to improve health and digital literacy in disadvantaged groups https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-to-improve-health-and-digital-literacy-in-disadvantaged-groups/
- Designing health care inclusively for people with low incomes https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-designing-health-care-inclusively-for-people-with-low-incomes/
- Improving access, uptake and optimisation of behavioural interventions in the health care setting to better meet the needs of disadvantaged groups https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-improving-access-uptake-and-optimisation-of-behavioural-interventions-in-the-health-care-setting-to-better-meet-the-needs-of-disadvantaged-groups/
- Improving case finding of long-term health problems in disadvantaged communities https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-improving-case-finding-of-long-term-health-problems-in-disadvantaged-communities/