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1. How to use this tool?

There are 8 modules in this tool, including:

  • Agency-focused Change for Health Equity

  • Community Engagement for Health Equity 

  • Conducting Community Assessments for Health Equity

  • Quantifying the Issue for Health Equity

  • Searching the Literature for Health Equity

  • Prioritizing Program and Policy Options for Health Equity

  • Action Planning for Health Equity

  • Evaluating Programs and Policies for Health Equity
     

Use the questions included in each of these modules as conversation starters and thought prompts as you work with staff, colleagues, and stakeholders. Many of the questions link out to additional resources that provide examples or lend support to your program or agency.

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*This tool is dynamic and will be updated regularly. Watch for the inclusion of new content, case-studies, videos, and resources over time.

2. Who is this tool designed for?

This tool can be used by:

  • State and local health departments

  • Community-based organizations

  • Community coalitions and community partnerships

  • Individuals or groups (agencies, teams, and partnerships)

Although an awareness of the need for greater health equity and the existing gaps in health disparities has advanced throughout the public health field in recent years, a corresponding capacity to address these disparities and advance equity remains under-developed among many public health practitioners. This approach of applying an EBPH framework in practice can provide practitioners greater confidence that their work will reduce the disproportionate burden of poor health outcomes on discrete groups of people.

 

This guide includes the most current and available resources to help practitioners collaboratively make evidence-based decisions and conduct inclusive work, which reduces health disparities and promotes equity.

4. Why have this tool?
3. What is this tool?

Health equity is defined as “attainment of the highest level of health for all people.” Health Equity ensures that all people have full and equal access to opportunities that enable them to lead healthy lives. Health inequities are described as differences in health that are systemic, avoidable, unfair, and unjust. Health inequities are affected by social, economic, and environmental conditions (or social determinants). The concept of injustice is central to the definition of health inequity. While often used similarly, the term health disparities, does not explicitly include the concept of justice. Health disparities, therefore, are simply the differences in health outcomes among groups of people and are the result of health inequities.

“Every individual should have the opportunity to achieve their full health potential.”

--CDPHE Office of Health Equity

Public health has a fundamental obligation to focus on health equity and on the factors that give rise to health inequities because many of the populations served by public health programs have suffered historical discrimination and disadvantage. When the issue of health equity is ignored, many programs have the potential to worsen disparities. For this reason, it is critical that public health practitioners have the tools to successfully advance equity in the field.

 

Throughout this tool, we have applied a health equity lens to evidence-based decision making processes in public health in order to assure rigorous consideration of the issues confronting communities. This is done by:

  • taking a closer look at the disparities apparent in data

  • engaging the community authentically in assessment and decision-making

  • adapting and implementing evidence-based interventions for specific populations or settings

  • conducting sound evaluation

  • disseminating evaluation findings to improve programs and policies.

 

The Evidence-Based Public Health (EBPH) framework, developed by Dr. Ross Brownson and colleagues at the Prevention Research Center in St. Louis, is used widely by people working in public health across the country, and serves as a foundation for the Advancing Health Equity tool.

How to Use this Tool

Let’s begin by moving to the next module:

Overview and Introduction

“Health equity means social justice in health (i.e., no one is denied the possibility to be healthy for belonging to a group that has historically been economically/socially disadvantaged). Health disparities are the metrics we use to measure progress toward achieving health equity. A reduction in health disparities (in absolute and relative terms) is evidence that we are moving toward greater health equity.”

--Paula Braveman and Laura Gottlieb, Public Health Reports, 2014 

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