Our social responsibility to improve health equity
Why does health equity matter? We can look at some recent statistics that illustrate how stark and devastating health inequalities are across the world:
- 94% of all maternal deaths occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries
- children in sub-Saharan Africa are more than 15 times more likely to die before the age of five than children in high-income countries
- non-communicable diseases disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries where more than three-quarters (31.4 million) of deaths from global non-communicable diseases occur annually.
There are hundreds of other statistics that we could use to tell a similar story about health inequity. The purpose of this is not to shame anyone, but to act as a call for support. We did not set out to make a world where such vast health inequalities exist, and we do have the opportunity to do something about it.
How are we improving health equity?
Cochrane’s Equity Group has worked to create a strategic workplan with five key objectives centred around health equity.
The first objective is promoting equity in the health evidence base. This means developing methods that promote equity in observational studies, randomised trials and systematic reviews.
The second objective is to ensure equitable processes for stakeholder engagement. It aims to do this by developing a series of recommendations for conducting, reporting and evaluating stakeholder engagement throughout all stages of the evidence synthesis process.
The third objective is to produce high-priority, equity-focused evidence syntheses. This means conducting systematic reviews that tackle the questions relating to the greatest health inequities globally. We will work with other thematic groups within Cochrane to identify the priority questions to be addressed in equity-focused Cochrane reviews.
The fourth objective is to build capacity for equity design, analysis and reporting. This means training author teams and developing formal and informal partnerships globally. The Equity Group is establishing a Training and Mentoring Oversight Committee to facilitate training in equity methods in systematic reviews and will work towards linking new and experienced review authors.
Finally, Cochrane’s Health Equity Group aims to promote equity in implementation tools such as GRADE-Equity, the GIN-McMaster Guideline Development Checklist and specific health guidelines.
In addition to achieving the workplan outlined above, the Cochrane Equity Group’s first priority is to diversify membership across all committees to increase the representativeness of its governance. We are proud of the stakeholders who currently engage with us and recognise there is a need for more diversity and global representation within the group.
A call to support
Although this is a great start, we want to do more. We have a large team of passionate individuals and we also know that we have dedicated members in the evidence healthcare community who feel strongly about health equity. However, we need to make sure that the momentum doesn’t stop there.
This blog is a call for support: we need more people with passion, ideas and skills to tackle health inequities and to work together to create a world where health outcomes are not dependent on where you live and who you are.
To get involved, please contact Jennifer Petkovic at Cochrane’s Health Equity Group.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this World EBHC Day Blog, as well as any errors or omissions, are the sole responsibility of the author and do not represent the views of the World EBHC Day Steering Committee, Official Partners or Sponsors; nor does it imply endorsement by the aforementioned parties.
