An equal society protects and promotes equal, real freedom and substantive opportunity to live the ways people value and would choose, so that everyone can flourish

An equal society recognises people's different needs, situations and goals and removes the barriers that limit what people can do and can be

(Fairness and Freedom: the Final Report of the Equalities Review, 2007)

As an organisation SDC believes that poverty, deprivation, discrimination and inequality are fundamentally unjust, detrimental to individual and community mental health and well-being and can undermine the recovery of people who experience mental health problems. One of SDC's strategic aims is to support work which seeks to tackle the sources and effects of mental heath inequality, removing the barriers to enabling people, including people with mental health problems to "flourish".

Mental health inequality means that the factors that can put mental health and well-being at risk or promote mental health and well-being are unequally, but not randomly distributed across the population. Some groups are at greater risk than others (Equal Minds, 2005).

These inequalities can arise from the impact of socio-economic status e.g. poverty, the stigma and discrimination that people experience as a result of some aspect of their identify, for example, their age, gender, the experience of having mental health problems or a physical disability, coming from a black or minority ethnic community, identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual or transgender. Mental health inequalities can also arise from people's life circumstance e.g. from the experience of childhood abuse, being a carer or having been in prison. Sometimes a combination of factors may expose people to multiple sources of discrimination.

Action to tackle inequalities can take place at a number of different levels:

• Through Legislation, for example the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Equalities Act 2006, Race Relations Act 1976 and Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
• Through policy, including policies aimed at social inclusion, anti-poverty and community regeneration, through education and employment policies and through health policies, including mental health
• Through service design and delivery including services and initiatives aimed at mental health services and mental health improvement
• Through practice

Contact details

Pippa Coutts
pippa@sdcmh.org.uk

0131 555 5959