Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) to develop a new elearning session on health inequalities for the All Our Health programme.

Health inequalities are defined as avoidable differences in health outcomes between groups or populations, such as differences in how long we live, or the age at which we get preventable diseases or health conditions. Similarly, health disparities are described as “a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage” (Healthy People, 2020).

In England, there is a 19-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least affluent areas of the country, with people in the most deprived neighbourhoods, certain ethnic minority and inclusion health groups getting multiple long term health conditions 10 to 15 years earlier than the least deprived communities, spending more years in ill health and dying sooner.

The All Our Health session highlights that everyone can help to address health disparities and health inequalities in the course of their everyday work or role. It has been created to help health and care professionals, practitioners, commissioners, senior leaders, managers, and voluntary and community sector workers to:

• gain a broad understanding of what is meant by ‘health inequalities’
• understand the causes of health inequalities
• implement the evidence-based actions and interventions that can be incorporated into everyday practice to address these issues

The session also signposts learners to other sources of useful information such as HEE elfh’s Social Prescribing elearning programme, the Institute for Health Equity and Gov’s Health Inclusion guidance.

It complements the 29 existing sessions within the All Our Health programme which covers a range of public health topics including physical activity, mental health, alcohol, and child and adult obesity. All Our Health also features 5 interactive townscape sessions where learners can click on various buildings, such as the GP surgery and school, to access support on topics such as breastfeeding and child oral health.

To access the latest resource, please select the Health Disparities and Health Inequalities session on the All Our Health programme page.