Welcome

The Centre for Health Equity consolidates our School's social, behavioural and public health expertise into a single, world-class Centre.

The Centre

Prof Richard Chenhall

Professor Richard Chenhall, Director

Situated in Australia’s top ranked university – the University of Melbourne – within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, we create and exchange knowledge that fosters health equity. Our high quality research informs policy and practice, promotes health, and improves lives in Australia and beyond. Our aim is for everyone to have the same opportunities for a healthy life.

The Centre for Health Equity provides international leadership in working across intersecting factors that shape health including gender, Indigeneity, disability, trauma exposure, migration and refugee status, age, sexuality, and socio-economic status. Our world-class researchers develop practical and nuanced solutions to complex structural injustices that create vulnerabilities for at- risk populations.

“Equity is the absence of avoidable, unfair, or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically or by other means of stratification. “Health equity”… implies that ideally everyone should have a fair opportunity to attain their full health potential and that no one should be disadvantaged from achieving this potential.” (WHO 2020).

Our core focus is on creating and exchanging knowledge that fosters health equity and wellbeing. Our approach is to work at a population level to produce evidence-based research and programs that improve lives. By connecting with health professionals, policy-makers, consumer groups and the broader community, we aim to improve fair access to good health and wellbeing.

Key Partners

Our Centre advances understandings of health inequities and develops solutions to address them through multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches. For tools, we use the most innovative and leading-edge methods informed  by  social, public  health, and behavioural sciences. For insights, we go to the source: individuals, households, communities, institutions -- anywhere that age, income, gender, Indigeneity, and other differences affect health.

Teaching

Many of our staff are recognised internationally as leaders within their respective fields and bring decades of experience to support their teaching. Currently, our staff teach into a range of University and external programs and short courses, including coordinating number of subject for the Master  of Public Health program.

Research

Health equity is shaped by many factors – such as social disadvantage – and also by how these factors intersect with one another. To advance understanding of these complex issues requires multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches. Our Centre's research brings together diverse disciplines and fields, including social epidemiology, behavioural sciences, geography, sociology, ethics, Indigenous studies, history and demography. It reaches into households, communities and institutional settings – anywhere that age, income, place, disability, race, gender and difference affect equal access to health and wellbeing.

Collaborations

Each of our units is involved in research collaborations at local, national and international levels. These range from government departments seeking our input for policy development, to Indigenous communities advising our researchers on how best to deliver trachoma programs within their communities. Powerful resources and productive relationships sustain our work. Our partnerships include governments and health departments in Australia and internationally, the World Health Organization, universities and many other institutes and organisations in other countries, the Cochrane Public Health Group, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (Vic Health). The efforts of our researchers and staff have been recognised in many ways, including numerous awards, NHMRC and ARC Grants and Fellowships and ARC Linkage Grants, invitations to address prestigious international assemblies, and international prizes for their research.