An alliance of individuals from voluntary groups, professional organisations and the health sector has been formed to campaign for the elimination of inequalities in public health in Ireland.
The first meeting of the group in Dublin yesterday was attended by community workers as well as health board representatives, doctors and nurses.
Mr Owen Metcalfe, an associate director of the Institute of Public Health who was involved in setting up the alliance, said it would provide an independent voice to lobby for change.
Furthermore, he said the group was bringing together people from diverse backgrounds who wanted to work to improve health and tackle inequalities.
"We believe inequalities can only be tackled by involving diverse groups because there are many factors which influence health," he said.
"These are people who want to really address some of the key issues in health inequalities such as why poor people have a shorter life expectancy than rich people, why Traveller women and men have a shorter life expectancy than settled men and women and why people with a disability have a 50 per cent greater chance of getting into relative poverty than somebody without a disability," he said.
The Public Health Alliance of Ireland hopes to follow in the footsteps of similar alliances already in existence in the UK, in Europe and the US by working to influence public health policy through research, policy analysis and public education.
It will be seeking representation on policy-making groups and bodies.
The new lobby group is separate to the Independents' Health Alliance which was formed last March in advance of the general election.
It ran eight independent candidates in the election, one of whom, Mr Finian McGrath TD, was elected.