Hello Melina,
I am wondering if you're familiar with the Canadian Council on Social
Development - they have many excellent resources on income disparities and
community action on their website.  In addition, the Caledon Institute has
supported a community-based program to reduce poverty in the Waterloo Region
(Ont) which they call Opportunities 2000.  The web site for this specific
project is http://www.op2222.org/Series3.htm  or you can access it all
through Caledon's website.

The conundrum for Health Authorities is that while its' a key determinant,
it is not entirely within their "mandate".  So, I have come to believe that
effective action consists of a multi-pronged strategy:
1. TAKING AN ADVOCACY POSITION when there are opportunities for policy
choices that are clearly about income disparities, e.g. minimum wage or
income tax rates for low income people or access fees for public services.
This gives the public the idea that health and income are connected, and,
even though you may, as we did, get a lot of flak from the press and
business groups, it gives people hope and lets them see the opportunity of
using larger organizations to work with them on their issues.
2. ACTING to minimize the effect of disparities e.g. supporting programs to
increase the resources available to low income families and improving their
ability to organize through building capacity.  These should be explicit
statements in program priorities.
3. EDUCATING  staff and the general public about the issue and how it
affects health status and community quality of life - through all the means
available to large institutions, including newsletters, conferences, etc.
etc.
4.WORKING WITH/ORGANIZING OTHER institutions to act together.  Here, that's
the Tribal Council and City Council and Housing Faciliatators and Social
Services folks etc. etc.  Probably different in your community.
Hope this helps.  Love to see what you come up with.

> ----------
> From:         Melina Auerbach[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Health Promotion on the Internet
> Sent:         Thursday, January 28, 1999 5:21 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      strategies for addressing income as a determinant of health
>
> I am looking for (local,national, international) examples of successful
> strategies that communities or governments have adopted that have had an
> impact on poverty and/or disparity of incomes.
>
> Poverty has been identified by our Regional Health Board as one of the
> biggest priority health issues.  We are developing a workshop to try to
> help
> the Board and the public committees come up with some strategies to
> address
> the issue of income as a health determinant.. it would be helpful to
> provide
> them with some successful strategies/innovative approaches that have been
> tried.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
>
> Melina Auerbach
> Community Developer
> Vancouver/Richmond Health Board
> Tel: 604-877-4690
> Fax: 604-872-2368
>