Addressing health inequalities in Europe: key messages from the Joint Action Health Equity Europe (JAHEE)

The EU Joint Action Health Equity Europe (JAHEE) aimed to advance action of health inequalities throughout Europe. JAHEE was funded by the third EU Health Programme, with the main goal of strengthening cooperation between participating countries and of implementing concrete actions to reduce health inequalities.

The partnership was led by the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) and counted 24 countries. It conducted actions in five policy domains: monitoring, governance, healthy living environments and health systems and migration. Each action was implemented following a three-step implementation approach.

In this article, JAHEE sets out its main tools and key messages. These include:

• Policy Frameworks for Action (PFA) to collect the available evidence on what practices should be implemented in each domain.
• Country Assessments (CAs) evaluated the extend to which countries had already implemented recommended practice in each domain to guide the choice of which concrete actions would be implemented.
• Final recommendations based on JAHEE’s results were developed and agreed with he involved Ministries of Health.

What is an EU Joint Action?

An EU Joint Action is a high-level response by the EU to support Member States to work together addressing health inequalities and underlying social determinants of health. Thus, they are collaborations among countries to share tools and approaches, and build capacity to address key health issues.