Projects / Initiatives

The aim of this project is to build knowledge regarding how public policies contribute to the distribution of socioeconomic advantage and the implications for health equity. We are identifying mechanisms through which public policies may shape the distribution of material and non-materials resources (e.g., rules of access and accumulation) and a relevant and impactful set of indicators that can be used to measure the distribution of those material and non-material resources within countries. We will conduct qualitative analysis (e.g. key informant interviews and document analysis) to examine how these mechanisms were conceived, deliberated, and decided upon in the public policy development process and the projected impacts on the distribution of socioeconomic advantage. The identified indicators produced using a Delphi will anchor the policy evaluation outcomes across four policy domains: finance, labour, infrastructure, and food systems. The research conducted will embed complex and systems-level evidence production within health equity policy evaluation and inform policy recommendations within Australia and internationally to enhance health equity. Additionally, this research will support an ongoing socioeconomic advantage monitoring endeavour within the Australian Research Centre for Health Equity.

The Privilege Toolkit: An Introduction

Public policies shape more than responses to problems or the distribution of resources. They influence whose needs are recognised, which forms of knowledge are valued, how power and resources are distributed, and what futures become possible.

The Privilege Toolkit provides a structured approach for examining the ideas, assumptions, choices, instruments and silences embedded in policy. It helps users identify how policy creates, reproduces or disrupts economic, political, sociocultural and epistemic advantage.

The toolkit focuses primarily on the formal articulation of policy in documents and related materials. It complements, rather than replaces, approaches examining agenda setting, political contestation, policy development and implementation. Designed for researchers, policymakers, civil society, communities, practitioners and students, it can support policy analysis, development, comparison, teaching, engagement and reform. By making structural advantage visible, the toolkit helps identify opportunities to redistribute resources and power, recognise marginalised knowledge and expand the policy alternatives needed for more equitable social and health outcomes.

Hero image by Daniel Sharp on Unsplash