Non-government advocacy for health equity: evidence from Australia

The aim of this paper is to identify non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating for policy and practices to address rising health inequities in Australia. NGOs can play a critical role in shaping and influencing governance processes including public policy relating to the social and commercial determinants of health inequities. However, scholarship on who the NGOs are that are advocating to address health inequities in Australia and how they operate is sparse. Through desktop analysis in 2022, we searched NGO websites and documents for evidence of advocacy activities related to health inequities between 2017 and 2022. A database of the NGOs was compiled, noting the type of organization, function, advocacy activities and main issues their advocacy covered. A total of 137 NGOs were identified as engaging in activities advocating for change to address health inequities either directly (e.g. advocating directly to address health inequities) or indirectly (e.g. advocating on social determinants of health inequities such as housing and linking to their unequal health impacts). We noted the primary issues they advocated on, including topic categories: risk factor, disease-specific, broader health system, social determinants of health equity, and health workforce and service issues. The results indicate that Australian NGOs from multiple sectors are active in advocacy to address heath inequities on a variety of topics and through a variety of activities. This study provides a template for similar studies in other countries and suggests further research is needed to understand the role and impact of civil society advocacy to address growing health inequities.