This fact sheet explains what health equity is, why it matters and how it can be achieved. It defines health equity as the state in which everyone can attain their full potential for health and wellbeing, and the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences in health among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically, or by other dimensions of inequality such as sex, gender, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation.

It sets out why health inequities are avoidable, unfair and unjust, since they arise not only from differences in access to health services but also from overall living and working conditions, and notes that realising every individual's right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is fundamental to ending poverty and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It illustrates the difference between equality and equity, and closes with a set of questions to consider when developing new policies and programmes.