Department of Health

Website of the Department of Health

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Tools and resources

Tools and resources to support activities that combat health inequalities.

Health Inequalities Intervention Tool

The joint Department of Health/Association of Public Health Observatories Health Inequalities Intervention Tool is a new interactive online resource which draws together key data and modelling to help areas with the worst health and deprivation (the Spearhead Group) improve life expectancy quickly.

It presents both a national and local picture, showing:

  • Life expectancy in each Spearhead local authority
  • The gap in life expectancy between each Spearhead local authority and England
  • A breakdown of the causes of the life expectancy gap by disease type and age

The Tool also contains a ready reckoner, which allows Spearhead Areas to estimate the potential effect on their life expectancy gap if certain interventions are increased, specifically:

  • support for people to give up smoking
  • control blood pressure through prescribing antihypertensives in people without diagnosed cardiovascular disease.
  • control cholesterol through prescribing statins in people without diagnosed cardiovascular disease.
  • actions to reduce infant mortality

Creating Healthier Communities - a resource pack for local partnerships

Published: 17/03/2005

This is a practical guide which seeks to help drive forward local health improvement and tackle health inequalities. It is aimed at those with an interest in this agenda, in particular Local Authorities, Primary Care Trusts and other NHS bodies, Neighbourhood Partnerships, and Local Strategic Partnerships. There is a real focus and commitment from the Government on improving health and tackling health inequalities which has been reflected in the Public Health White Paper Choosing Health and through national Public Service Agreements (PSA) targets on health. This is clearly a challenging agenda and will require effective partnership working at the national level to front line staff and communities. This resource pack aims to support this agenda by providing information and suggestions on how to address the complex issues surrounding poor health and health inequalities, with a particular emphasis on the need to engage in partnership working.

Local basket of indicators (LBOI)

The LBOI were released on the London Health Observatory website on 30 October 2003. The purpose of the LBOI is to support local action and priority setting to tackle health inequalities and are aimed at the NHS, local authorities, LSPs and partner organisations such as the voluntary, community and private sectors.

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