Research and equity in child health

In this article, I address 3 questions about research in the area of health inequities for children: why continue to do research, where should research efforts focus, and how best can we facilitate the development of research in the area of health equity? I was prompted to consider these issues by colleagues who think that doing research into child health inequalities is a waste of time. They say that not because they come from a right-wing perspective; on the contrary, they say, "Listen, we know about this stuff, why don't you just get on and do something about it and stop worrying about the research?" Therefore, we must rethink the relevance of the why and the what before we consider the how.