Health Equity

“Can you imagine a world in which everyone has a fair chance to be healthy? It starts with the removal of obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, lack of access to good jobs, etc., and ends when the immutable characteristics of race, gender, and sexual identity, are no longer correlated to higher rates of adverse health outcomes. The result is healthier communities. Check out this video to see the panel discussion from this lively conversation at SXSW 2018 on what it takes to make health equity a reality.”

“To [advance health equity], [health departments] must transform how they work internally, with communities, and alongside other government agencies. To support this challenging work, [HealthEquityGuide.org] developed this set of strategic practices…[to] help local health departments systematically address power imbalances, racism, and other forms of oppression which are at the root of health inequities.”

“Frames matter because they can foster certain understandings and hinder others. Often, all it takes is a single word or image to activate an entire frame that then determines the deeper meaning of that word or image. Once activated, frames trigger emotions, associations, values, judgments, and causal explanations. They create tracks for a train of thought. And once on that track, it’s hard to get off.” Visit this webpage to learn more about framing from the Berkeley Media Studies Group.

“While the term health equity is used widely, a common understanding of what it means is lacking.” This report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWFJ) is “designed to increase consensus around meaning of health equity.” The report puts forth four key steps to achieve health equity.

Community Commons is “an evolving interactive mapping, networking, and learning utility for the broad-based healthy, sustainable, livable communities movement” that provides “easy-to-use, democratized access to data, GIS-generated maps, and reporting tools.”

“ChangeLab Solutions works across the nation to advance equitable laws and policies that ensure healthy lives for all. We prioritize communities whose residents are at highest risk for poor health. Our interdisciplinary team of lawyers, planners, policy analysts, and more, works with neighborhoods, cities, and states to create thriving communities.”

“Building Public Health Capacity to Advance Equity is an environmental scan funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to explore governmental public health’s role in advancing health equity with racial equity as a major priority and community engagement as a central strategy. Through literature reviews, in-depth interviews and focus groups with health officials, public health experts, and community leaders across the country, [they] have identified a variety of opportunities for governmental public health to advance equity.”

This report summarizes the lessons learned from the Mayors’ Institute on Advancing Education and Health through a Community Schools Strategy in May 2017 hosted by the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute). The YEF Institute is committed to supporting “mayors and city leaders in developing effective strategies to ensure that all children and families develop the skills needed to thrive in the 21st Century workforce.”