Health promotion focuses on achieving equity in health. These statistics show what problems we face in health promotion. The National centre for Social and Economic modelling (NATSEM) report found the wealthiest 10 % of Australians have 43% of the nations total wealth and the top 50% of Australians have 90% of all wealth. Not as bad as the USA where 20% of the population control 85% of all wealth. Although research is an important factor the worlds biomedical advances are skewed disproportionately to the rich. In 1998 global spending on health research totalled $70 billion US but just $300 million was dedicated to HIV/Aids and about $100 million to malaria research. Helen White MPH Sydney _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp