Widening social inequalities in Britain are reflected in uneven patterns of health within and between populations. Among professional health workers there is a developing awareness of the significance of tackling inequality in order to procure better health. In Working for Equality in Health, the contributors, who include health activists, service users and carers, politicians and researchers as well as health and social care professionals, not only detail the inter-relationships and processes by which health inequalities are maintained, but present analyses - refined through experience - of strategies to combat them. They describe their attempts in practice to counteract the impact on people's health of the complex interaction of inequalities based on class, relative poverty, 'race', gender, age, disability and sexual orientation. Working for Equality in Health brings to bear the understanding of a unique combination of practitioners and activists on a key issue for health experience, policy and practice. Common themes and common obstacles become apparent: the need for ever better understandings of the interactive effects of social disadvantage; the damage wrought to people's health by inegalitarian economic, social and health policies and the benefits of alliances between health professionals and other health workers built upon a strategic commitment to combat social and health inequalities. Jo Alderidge and Saul Becker, Loughborough University; Clare Blackburn, University of Warwick; Clare Evans, Wiltshire Users Network; Paul Bywaters and Eileen McLeod, Covent