The article explores why health equity issues are not making it onto government agendas and why healthy public policies are not being adopted. Researchers found that only a small number of articles on social determinants of health and health equity use policy analysis theories. Most of the literature focuses on advocacy rather than analysis. When these theories are used, they are not fully applied. Understanding the policy process and incorporating policy analysis theories into research could help get health equity issues onto government agendas and address political barriers to reforms.