The project Action for Health and Equity: Addressing medical Deserts – or AHEAD – aims to reduce health inequalities by addressing the challenge of medical deserts and medical desertification in Europe. Our goal is to achieve better access to health services, especially in underserved areas, and more equitable access to sufficient, skilled and motivated health workers, starting with the countries involved in the project: Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia. We aim to do this by building knowledge encouraging (digital) innovation in health service delivery and applying a participatory approach to public health policymaking.