ABSTRACT
Although attention to difference and diversity as determinants of child public health has sharpened in recent years, the issues are not new. Awareness that there are population sector differences in the ability to gain access to health services and to positive health outcomes is not a preserve of contemporary political and academic life. In fact, more than a century has passed since the vulnerability of some minorities to poorer health and higher mortality was first observed. And, in striking resonance with contemporary analysis, the connection between health inequalities and the social, economic and environmental deprivations experienced by these minority groups was initially elaborated in the 19th and early 20th centuries (Trask, 1916; Engels, 1987; Acheson, 1998).
