Partnering for prevention: 20 years of advancing health equity

This year marks twenty years since Health Equalities Group was first incorporated as a charity, a milestone that offers space for reflection, but more importantly, a renewed sense of purpose.

HEG’s origins lie in the launch of Heart of Mersey in 2004, one of the UK’s first regional cardiovascular disease prevention programmes. Anchored in evidence and partnership, it laid the groundwork for a systems-focused approach to public health, one that continues to guide us today.

Since then, we’ve grown into a charity that works within and across the regions of the UK with a portfolio of programmes that address the commercial, structural, and environmental drivers of poor health. The launch of Healthy Stadia in 2006 extended our reach into professional and grassroots sport, embedding health-promoting policies into football clubs and stadiums across Europe. In 2013, Food Active was created in response to rising rates of obesity and food-related ill health, advocating for healthier food environments through research, campaigning, and collaboration with North West local authority public health teams.

We’ve also helped define and scale practical tools for prevention. The NHS Prevention Pledge, developed in partnership with Trusts, and the School’s Pledge – our most recent initiative – support settings-based action to embed prevention into daily practice. These frameworks are co-produced and designed to help institutions grasp the levers within their reach to deliver change.

Alongside our programmes, HEG has delivered applied public health interventions focused on a wide range of challenges, from healthier weight and oral health inequalities to smoking cessation, gambling harms, and violence prevention. Across all of this work, our goal remains consistent: to develop scalable, evidence-informed solutions that support population health and reduce inequalities.

Increasingly, our role is also one of connection. We act as a bridge between academic researchers and the communities, practitioners, and commissioners who bring evidence to life. HEG is proud to support applied research projects that are grounded in lived experience, patient and public involvement, ensuring that findings don’t sit in reports, but influence policy and practice across the systems they were commissioned to support.

Twenty years on, we remain committed to upstream, preventative action and to the partnerships that make it possible. The challenges ahead demand bold thinking and coordinated responses, and we look forward to continuing this work with all those who share our commitment to building healthier, fairer futures.

Take a look at our recently updated timeline to explore more of our work over the past two decades.