Health Equity

As the climate crisis continues to accelerate, public health departments must work with communities to create mitigation and prevention measures to protect health. Government entities often seek guidance on how to meaningfully engage communities and on what solutions will best support underserved communities. Community members need accessible open processes and solutions that will help communities at the frontline of climate change. To support this work, we have created a toolkit on community-centered emergency response and preparedness and a toolkit on community-centered solutions to extreme heat.

In honor of Black History Month, Network attorneys and staff have highlighted six policies that have the power to reduce health disparities and improve outcomes for Black people and communities of color throughout the United States. This policy brief serves as a practical tool to help public health professionals, leaders, and partners share strategies that can advance, rather than threaten, Black health and wellbeing over the long-term.

Attend this webinar to obtain insights and the key take-aways from a feasibility study, commissioned by the Network, in which public health advocates and leaders from 45 organizations where asked how we can strengthen public health advocacy. Their responses provided a picture of the current state of affairs in public health and opportunities to strengthen the voice of public health in advocating for evidence-based, sound public health interventions and policies, and for the profession and practice of public health itself.

This report uses a revised Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework put forward by Ruqaiijah Yearby to examine the role of law as a tool to address structural discrimination, with a focus on health impacts across the lifespan. This framework illustrates how law and the systems it interacts with can shape health and well-being and identifies structural discrimination as the root cause of disparities in health outcomes. 

Leaders across the country are adopting formal resolutions to declare racism a public health crisis and are committing to specific policy changes. Attend this webinar, co-sponsored by the Network and Salud America!, to learn about resources and tools for engaging local advocates and leaders in drafting resolutions.

by Overview 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET | December 15, 2021Attend this webinar for an examination of some of the most important and…

Voting impacts public health policies ranging from healthcare access to gun control and LGBTQ rights. In this Q&A, Network Southeastern Region Office Director Dawn Hunter discusses the newly launched Health & Democracy Index, which shows measures of health status (individual and population health and other population characteristics, including self-rated health, premature mortality, infant mortality, poverty rates, and community and family safety) relative to the Cost of Voting Index for each state. Dawn also outlines legal and policy strategies to improve voter participation and health. 

The Network identified five key strategies that courts can deploy to respond to the eviction crisis in a manner that contributes to the health of the communities they serve.

by Overview 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET | June 22, 2021The COVID-19 pandemic has created profound challenges to public health’s efforts to protect…

This fact sheet outlines efforts, both legislative and other, to evaluate and improve public health authority and emergency response in the aftermath of the pandemic.

The following guidance document can help guide stakeholders in developing and implementing declarations as well as thinking through broader issues connected to race and racism.

In this Q&A, Dawn Hunter, deputy director of the Network’s Southeastern Region Office, discusses some of the key elements in the chapter she authored, Lessons from the 2020 Election Cycle, for the Report.