Power is the ability to achieve a purpose, such as advancing health equity. There are many types of power (e.g., political, economic, expert, institutional, community, and worker power) and many ways of conceiving of power (e.g., power over, power to, power with, and power within). Communities, institutions, and people who hold more power also experience advantage , which reinforces inequity, and use their power to maintain the status quo. Changing the written and unwritten rules that create and maintain patterns of advantage and disadvantage between socially defined groups (the structural determinants of health) requires redistributing power. Public health can share the power it has and redistribute power to communities that have been marginalized by systems of oppression. Public health can also act to build power in those communities and work to limit the power of those who benefit from the status quo. 1