Addressing health inequalities through engagement with people and communities

Summary

Review data and evidence to identify health inequalities, prioritise needs, and guide targeted, effective engagement and interventions.

Link to health inequalities

Reviewing evidence ensures interventions focus on actual needs and avoids duplicating past efforts. Best practice involves identifying data gaps, incorporating community insights, and building comprehensive evidence on health inequalities – with particular reference to the specific needs of people with protected characteristics. This results in more targeted, effective actions that reduce disparities and address barriers to equitable health outcomes.

Activities, skills and resources

Emerging

• Use existing datasets to identify communities that may be affected by or influence the project, with a focus on identifying disparities within the data (particularly in terms of health outcomes).
• Document and summarise what is known about the needs and characteristics of communities.

Developing

• Conduct a gap analysis to identify what information is missing or incomplete in current datasets.
• Review and evaluate existing data, highlight uncertainties, and determine if additional data collection is needed.
• Document and share the identified knowledge gaps, creating a record of missing information to guide future engagement or data collection.

Maturing

• Organise meetings, workshops or surveys to directly involve communities in reviewing and validating the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the data.
• Document community input regarding the data, noting any discrepancies or additional needs identified by the community.
• Establish communication methods (for example, regular updates, follow-up sessions) that keep the community informed about how their feedback is used.

Thriving

• Routinely collect and synthesise data from multiple sources (local, regional, national) to build a comprehensive understanding of the community and its evolving needs.
• Compare data across different population groups to identify any disparities or unique needs.
• Develop an ongoing process to validate synthesised data with the community, ensuring that data insights remain accurate and relevant.
• Implement tracking systems that monitor and document changes in community needs over time, helping adapt engagement and service delivery.