In this issue there is a predominantly research flavour, but it is one that increasingly is drawing us to look at what we can really do about inequalities in health. We have long believed that if the adage that “it's the demography, stupid!” is one of the imperatives of public health, shelter and housing runs a close second. An editorial from New Zealand, linked to a paper from Canada, explores housing and inequalities in health from a broad sociological perspective. If housing provides shelter from the storm and a nest egg and a castle and a refuge, as well as being a purely physical environment, what does it really mean in the continuing argument over inequalities and health when the dice are so stacked that people in one form of habitat have greatly reduced access to education, work, social networks, recreation, culture, fresh air? Biological reductionism has driven us …