In this issue we mark the coming of age of work on equity and health with the publication of a set of papers from the first meeting of the International Society for Equity in Health held in Havana, Cuba in June 2000. A working definition of equity in health as “the absence of systematic and potentially remediable differences in one or more aspects of health across population groups defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically” provides the basis for contributions that …