ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that critical health scholars have a role to play in building more equitable and healthy societies. It alleviates the consequences of socio-economic stratification and inequalities through initiatives that target individual, familial, community, and societal elements within a whole-of-society approach. The chapter addresses entrenched inequalities that restrict access to resources, including health, which are due in most part to unjust societal structures. Embracing the need for scholar activism, the chapter focuses on prescriptions for political and socio-economic reforms, including initiatives such as living wages. This focus requires a reorientation away from failed penal welfare policies and practices, to instead move towards an anti-oppressive welfare system. The chapter outlines the need for mediated scholar activism to open up spaces for considering changes and to rebuild solidarity across groups in society. It concludes with a few final reflections on the contribution this book is intended to make to the critical health agenda.
