Adapting a health equity tool to meet professional needs (Québec, Canada)

While numerous tools are available to better incorporate equity into population health actions, they are limited mainly by their lack of adaptation to professional practices and organizational realities. A study was conducted in Québec to identify and understand, from the perspective of future users, conditions that would facilitate use of a tool (Reflex-ISS) targeted at supporting collaborative action to improve consideration of social inequalities in health (SIH) within population health actions. Concept mapping and focus groups were implemented as complementary methods for investigating the conditions. Significant results that emerged were strong participant interest in the tool and the need for resources to better take SIH into account. The conditions for use that were identified referred to the tool itself (user-friendliness and literacy) and to resources for appropriating the tool, competency development, as well as the role and responsibilities of organizations and policies in promoting use of the tool in daily activities and more fundamentally in acting against SIH in general. Models for organizational innovation give an idea of the dimensions that need to be considered to strengthen the integration of equity into organizations and to support the changes in practice that result from using the tool. They provide a reminder that a health equity tool cannot be the cornerstone of an organizational strategy to fight against SIH; rather, it must be incorporated as part of a systemic strategy of professional and organizational development.