An important challenge for public health organizations is building and maintaining the knowledge, skill and experience required to work effectively on social inequities. This challenge has led to a variety of capacity building strategies for public health recruitment, job orientation and training, and ongoing professional development.

Social marketing has been identified as a promising practice for reducing inequities in health. It is defined as “the systematic application of marketing alongside other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioural goals, for a social good”. Social marketing was selected by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) as a strategy to improve the health of pregnant women living in inner city neighbourhoods.

Northern Health in British Columbia undertook a community engagement process with northern Aboriginal communities of building relationships and working collaboratively to address issues stemming from marginalization and colonization to achieve a common goal of improving health for their people.

The health system plays an important role in coordinating the design, organization, and management of programs and services to achieve more equitable health outcomes for people. With this in mind, the BC Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) initiated the Reducing Health Inequities Project to identify actions the health system could take to reduce health inequities.

This is about an initiative that Northern Health, in British Columbia, undertook to improve the health of men in their region, and how their work showcases community engagement as a promising practice to reduce inequities in health.