Health promotion and the need to accelerate advocacy for health equity

It has been 15 years since the final report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH)—‘Closing the Gap in a Generation’ (CSDH, 2008)—was published. While there have been gains in overall health since then, improvements in health have not been equitably distributed and there is evidence of increasing inequities within OECD countries (Hu et al., 2016; Mackenbach et al., 2018). Reports from Oxfam and the World Inequality Lab have documented global increases in economic inequality which have been exacerbated by COVID-19 (Chancel et al., 2022; Christensen et al., 2023). Increasing inequities illustrate that political, economic and social factors can be harmful to health (World Health Organization, 1986), and highlight the importance of health promotion advocacy that calls for more equitable conditions. This is reflected in the 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion’s emphasis on the fundamental conditions and resources for improving health, including social determinants of health and equity (World Health Organization, 1986). The drivers of increasing health inequities in OECD countries highlight the urgent need for the health promotion community to match these with an acceleration of advocacy for health equity.