Health Equity
Resources
The Office of Minority Health has released the new NPA Toolkit for Community Action with the goal of supporting community efforts to end health disparities and promote health equity. Through this toolkit, community members will have the information and resources they need to help engage fellow citizens and local media as they spread the word about health disparities and educate others about the impact disparities have in the lives of individuals and the greater impact on society.
Unnatural Causes media and documents page has a great list of charts, fact sheets and powerpoint slides about health equity (including the one presented at the top of this page).We Dream A World: The 2025 Vision for Black Men and Boys identifies concrete policy solutions to close educational achievement gaps, ensure workforce success, reduce health disparities, improve conditions for low-income fathers and improve the overall well being of black men, their families and communities.
The Massachusetets Office of Health Equity, within the Department of Public Health, is a great place to start to learn more. Their website includes links to resources, such as the Massachusetts CLAS Standards, data, and interpreter services.
The Office of Minority Health, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has many resources, inlcluding the CLAS (Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services) Standards. These standards are made for health care organizations, but can be useful in helping other organizations and groups think about ways to make their services more culturally and linguistically appropriate.
Critical MASS for eliminating health disparities seeks to be a catalyst for the mobilization of a sustainable, statewide effort to accelerate the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities in Massachusetts. Their website has a great toolkit for Taking Community Action.
The National Health Equity Coalition is a policy and advocacy network committed to the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities and the achievement of health equity. Their website has links to many other organizations.
The Center for Disease Control Office of Minority Health has statistics, reports, and links to resources on their website.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) has Health Equity and Social Justice initiative. Their goal is to advance the capacity of local health departments (LHDs) to tackle the root causes of health inequities through public health practice and their organizational structure.
Prevention Institute's Health Equity and Prevention Primer (HEPP) serves as a web-based training series for public health practitioners and advocates interested in policy advocacy, community change, and multi-sector engagement to achieve health equity.
Place Matters: we've heard it (and seen it) a lot. Below are the links to research focusing on Californian boys and young men of color, although done by Harvard & Cornell. Best is that it adopts an advocacy and policy approach to solutions instead of simply confiming that life and statistics can be depressing. It focuses on mental health, violence, incarceration (of parents primarily), and school drop out effects.
New Article by Joan Whitaker
Healthy Communities Matter-full report.pdf
Healthy Communities Matter-exec sum.pdf
Why Race and Place Matter, a report released by PolicyLink in April 2011, makes the connection between race and place.