WASHINGTON, USA (CMC) – The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) says the five-month-old Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Region of the Americas has been meeting here to carry out the first large-scale effort to gather evidence on health inequities in the Region of the Americas, including the Caribbean.

The commission, chaired by Sir Michael Marmot, former chair of the global Commission on Social Determinants of Health, brings together more than a dozen leading international experts on health policy and social determinants of health.

The group was commissioned by PAHO to carry out the Independent Review on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas.

“[It is] an effort to identify the causes of health inequalities in the Americas to inform countries as they work to advance the [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and reduce or eliminate health equity gaps,” said PAHO, which is serving as the Commission’s secretariat.

PAHO said the Americas is one of the world’s most unequal regions, but added that it has emerged as a “worldwide leader in moving forward two key agendas—the ‘Social Determinants of Health’ and ‘Health in All Policies’ agendas — that seek to reduce avoidable health inequities and contribute to sustainable improvements in human well-being and the enjoyment of the right to health and other related human rights.”

The Commission’s work will draw on both these agendas to identify how factors including gender, ethnicity, legal and socioeconomic status influence health in the Americas and to make recommendations for policy and action, PAHO said.

Other members of the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Region of the Americas include Paulo Buss and Cesar Victora of Brazil; Nila Heredia of Bolivia; Tracy Robinson of Jamaica; Cindy Blackstock of Canada; Mirna Cunningham of Nicaragua; Maria Paula Romo of Ecuador; Pastor Murillo of Colombia; Mabel Bianco of Argentina; and David Satcher, Kathy Greenlee and Victor Abramovich of the United States.