Equity and the Health Equity Action Lab
Much of The George Institute’s work on equity in health is incubated within the Health Equity Action Lab (HeaL). The vision of this network of scientists is to increase the equity and rights orientation of health programs and health systems (reform) worldwide: HeaL supports decision-makers, implementers, and communities to make health systems and programs more equitable. This will be achieved by developing tools and processes to promote the translation of equity-related knowledge into policy and practice, conducting cutting edge research into magnitudes of and mechanisms underlying health inequalities as well as pathways to inclusion, and leading capacity strengthening and network building activities.
HeaL is designed as a trans-disciplinary research program, harnessing large teams across and outside of The George Institute. The emphasis of this work will be on health, wellbeing, and social development for all.
The George Institute’s work on equity includes but is not limited to:
- Subgroup and intersectional analyses focussing on people being left out based on gender, income, education, and other socio-demographic characteristics
- Collaboration with health system actors to understand and improve the visibility of the people marginalised from health systems and the systems which create health, through promotion of participatory approaches to amplify community voice in programming/policymaking, multisectoral collaboration in service of health, and promoting methodological plurality in more ethically and meaningfully understanding social exclusion and enhance inclusion
- Development of equity and action-oriented evidence synthesis in collaboration with The George Institute’s Meta-Research and Evidence Synthesis group – strengthening linkages between knowledge generation and practice
- Reflexive documentation and learning on ethics and praxis of research on health systems and healthier societies, developing tools and case studies to ethical issues and unintended consequences associated with research, as well as large scale health system interventions and programs, to enhance justice and minimise harm.
