Equity
Research should benefit everyone, whoever they are and wherever they live.
Every Australian helps fund health and medical research, and every Australian has a fair claim to what it delivers. Health equity can only be realised when there is research equity. Our position: health equity has to be built in, not added on, through how we invest, how we innovate and how we grow the workforce, across the whole health and medical research system.
CASE STUDY
What we did, and what happened next
A regional gap we surfaced is now written into the National Strategy.
What we Focused On
Regional and rural health research: the clearest case of a population carrying more disease burden while receiving less research investment.
What we did
Wrote the report on regional, rural and remote health research when no other organisation in the sector was working on it. Convened the roundtable that brought the whole pipeline into that conversation, and established the subcommittee that keeps working on it.
What happened in the system
Regional and rural research is in the National Health and Medical Research Strategy now. Other organisations argued for regional health too. We were the one that wrote the report.
The Case for EQUITY
Health equity starts with research equity
27%
of Australians live in regional, rural or remote areas. Only 13% of the health and medical research workforce does.
Rural population
HMR workforce
Source: Productivity Commission Five Pillars submission, Sept 2025
2.5 years
That’s how much less people outside Greater Sydney can expect to live than those in the city.
Source: AIHW (2025) Rural and remote health, citing ABS Life expectancy 2021–2023.
~12 years
the amount of life Australian women spend in ill health, despite living longer on average.
Source: Women’s Health Research Roadmap, Nov 2025.
The proof
Evidence on this platform
Every item below is citable.
Report
Arthritis
2026
Advancing Health and Medical Research and Innovation Across Regional, Rural, Remote and Very Remote Communities in Australia
RA’s RRRvR Policy Discussion Paper, developed with the University Roundtable.
Report
Clinical trials
2026
Shaping the Future of Australian Women’s Health Research: A Roadmap for System Reform
Launched with the George Institute, aligned to the National Women’s Health Agenda.
Communique
Digital health
2026
Recognising Consumers’ Contributions to Health Research
A national framework, co-designed with ANU, for fairly paying consumers who contribute to health research.
Help make research work for every community
Regional health services, consumer groups and research institutes all shape the positions we take to government on equity. Join them, or talk to our policy team.