Reducing Health Inequalities through Primary Care

Everyone in Wales deserves the opportunity for good health. However, some of us live in poorer health, living shorter lives. The building blocks of health include warm homes, fair work, money to pay bills, safe childhoods and connections with other people. For some of us these building blocks of health are not strong enough.   This affects our mental and physical well-being, behaviours and exposure to harm. Although the drivers of health inequalities sit outside the health service, how they are delivered can reduce or increase health inequalities.

Primary care works in and with communities and is the right place for personalised prevention, early intervention and treatment. It is therefore important that we keep reflecting and improving the ways in which primary care can impact on health inequalities. Health inequalities are complex but we should not let this overwhelm us in our actions.

These pages are designed to:

• Enhance understanding through providing data, evidence and signpost to training
• Support the development of a culture where we are all curious about where health inequalities exist, listen to people with lived experience, the front line and communities, roll out solutions that may help and check if they have been effective.

Population groups commonly considered for Health inequalities include (recognising there may be crossover or ‘intersectionality’: