Advancing health equity in New Orleans: Building on positive change in health

Health equity is the attainment of the highest level of health and well-being for all people. It requires efforts to ensure all people have full and equal access to opportunities that enable them to lead healthy lives. Conversely, health disparities are avoidable differences in health that are the result of unequal distributions of social, economic, and environmental factors. Examples include wealth, income, safe housing, quality education and quality health care – all of which influence health from an early age. Moreover, health is a determining factor in many people’s ability to work or work consistently and, as such, health equity contributes to the overall productivity of a region. (author introduction)