Health Equity

Health equity is a guiding priority and core value of APHA and also of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge. Each Challenge community is working to improve health equity in a way that is responsive to the intersection of social factors such as race, class and education-level. While each project team has  different strategies for dismantling barriers to improved health outcomes, they all have the overarching goal of helping members of their community achieve and maintain their highest level of health.

Throughout this two-year grant initiative, Challenge communities will continue working across sectors to leverage community resources and have community members become decision makers in an effort to advance health equity in their respective cities and counties.

From our Communities4Health blog:

• A Window of Opportunity Emerges in the Midst of COVID-19
• Redefining Community Engagement for Health Equity
• A Health Equity Q&A with Lamond Daniels
• A Discussion on Domestic Violence with Bridgette Stumpf
• Managing mental health during COVID-19
• Revolutionizing mental health care in Forsyth County
• Sustaining your Challenge work to promote health and well-being
• Unlocking systems-level thinking in Cincinnati

For more information on advancing health equity, view the following resources: 

• Allies and Co-Conspirators: Stepping up to support Anti-Racism
• Measuring Racial Equity in the Food System: Established and Suggested Metrics
• Prioritizing Equity video series
• PLACES: Local Data for Better Health
• The Planner’s Playbook
• Targeted Universalism: Policy & Practice
• Community Approaches to Systems Change
• Racial Equity Data Road Map: Data as a Tool Towards Ending Structural Racism
• A Collection of Podcasts On Race and Food
• Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity
• Decentralize Your Dollars: Incorporating Participatory Grant Making into Resource Allocation Decisions
• Beyond Inclusion: Pronoun Use for Health and Well-Being
• Centering Equity in Collective Impact
• Aligning Systems with Communities to Advance Equity through Shared Measurement: Guiding Principles
• Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication