Poverty, health and participation.

Poverty is an important influence on health and despite continuing economic growth, poverty and health inequalities persist. Current public policy aims to reduce the inequalities in the health, by focussing on the social factors influencing health, improving access to health and personal social services for those who are poor or socially excluded and by improving the information and research base in respect of the health status and service access for the poor and socially excluded groups. It is important that processes for target setting and evaluation involve people experiencing poverty, at all levels through consultative and participative structures and processes and in the roll-out of primary care teams. A number of projects throughout the country aim to address health inequalities using community development. These are essentially about widening participation in the development, planning and delivery of health services and ensuring that the community is actively involved in the decision making process about health services in their area.