Many people have worked for decades to try and decrease health inequalities – unfair and preventable differences in health across different population groups. Yet such inequalities persist. Excellent toolkits for assessing policy impact have already been created but we identified a need for something versatile which could be used in many different situations beyond research and policy, including capacity building and knowledge exchange activities, dissemination, evaluation, etc.

To address this need, the Health Inequalities Assessment Toolkit (HIAT) was developed to help researchers, practitioners and other professionals incorporate efforts to reduce health inequalities into their work. The HIAT was developed collaboratively by NHS and Local Authority partners, public advisers and staff from Lancaster, Central Lancashire and Liverpool universities as part of the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care North West Coast (CLAHRC NWC).

We are always keen to include real-life examples of HIAT assessments as these provide lots of ideas for how the tool can be used in different situations. If you use the HIAT please let us know! It can accessed online here: http://hiat.org.uk/