Will health trainers reduce inequalities in health?

The Health Trainer initiative was a public policy initiative designed to tackle health inequalities. Despite considerable improvements in the health of the population in the United Kingdom, there continues to be a gap between the rich and the poor in terms of deaths from cancer, stroke and coronary heart disease. There is a relationship between these health problems and lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, physical inactivity and poor diet. The Health Trainer initiative was created as part of the white paper Choosing Health. Following initial implementation across targeted Primary Care Trusts (The Spearhead Group), a rigorous evaluation of the initiative is taking place prior to a national roll out. This paper uses Whitehead's framework to examine the decision to implement health trainers as a stated aim of tackling health inequalities. The four purposes of health policy as identified by Whitehead (1995) and the categories of healthy living initiatives (Visram and Drinkwater 2005) are examined and applied to the health trainer initiative and its potential for reducing health inequality.