Building capacity to reduce health inequalities through health promotion in Europe

Abstract

Whilst considerable attention has been paid to describing and measuring health inequalities, relatively little attention has been paid to ways to effectively reduce health inequalities within and among populations. This article presents a conceptual framework for capacity building to assist stakeholders at the regional level within Europe to maximise the potential of healthy public policies and practices to reduce these inequalities as a core part of strategic action plans to access European Structural Funds. Within the ACTION-FOR-HEALTH (A4H) project co-funded by the European Commission (EC), a conceptual framework for capacity building to reduce health inequalities was developed and evaluated. The evaluation design adopted mixed methods involving a series of focus groups (n = 22), interviews (n = 14) and questionnaires (n = 34) involving the project partners. We present the A4H conceptual framework, which is based on a series of capacity-building actions comprising three key areas: (1) developing knowledge and skills; (2) building partnerships; (3) creating action plans. The evaluation data show that the project contributed to enhancing capacities in all three of these areas, at the regional, organisational, and individual levels. Focussing mostly on building capacities, the A4H project has the potential to have several sustainable outcomes. Our results underscore the importance of the capacity-building approach for the reduction of health inequalities in Europe.