Health Equity

Mississippi Roadmap to Health Equity relies on local residents to identify community health priorities and forges partnerships with the health department, educators, and other sectors to reduce health disparities in the state.

The Main Street Initiative in North Dakota brings together state and local representatives across sectors, including health departments, to grow communities primed for economic growth.

The Alameda County Public Health Department in California recognizes the links between health and safe and affordable housing, and offers data and policy expertise to inform community advocates and public officials.

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), in partnership with the Mayor’s Office, launched Healthy Chicago 2.0, a collaborative action plan that built on input from hundreds of stakeholders, to improve the health of all city residents

The tools contained here can help you build bridges to other sectors by articulating shared goals, the problems that stand in the way of reaching them, and the solutions that come from partnering with public health professionals. A growing challenge in public health communications is motivating sector-specific audiences to see the value of collaboration. To successfully break down silos, leaders in other sectors need to understand what public health professionals do and realize the benefits of partnering with them.

This toolkit will empower you to confidently tell strategic stories about public health. These stories can raise awareness of public health initiatives among key audiences and inspire those audiences to take action to help achieve your goals. It includes a number of tools to help you become a more confident storyteller, as well as insights from psychology and cognitive science that explain why storytelling is the most effective way to help non-experts understand and embrace a complex topic.

Use the research-based language, guidance, and best practices included in this toolkit to start conversations with non-experts and frame public health in a way that is relevant to their lives. These tools and messages are not intended to serve as a comprehensive definition of public health, or to replace other materials the field has developed (e.g., the core functions of public health and the 10 essential public health services). Rather, they aim to address the challenges experts face in motivating audiences to understand and support public health efforts.

“This playbook guides community developers toward partnerships with hospitals and healthcare systems. Although the community development sector is the primary audience for this playbook, it also has utility for public health departments, hospitals, and healthcare systems that are interested in learning more about the assets community development organizations bring to partnerships and how they can be leveraged for sustained impacts on population health.”

“From our unique position as a national convener at the intersection of community development and health, the Build Healthy Places Network developed these Principles to articulate shared values across sectors and lift up best practices. [Use] these principles [to] frame and guide efforts across sectors working toward achieving an equitable future where fair opportunity is an outcome for all.”