To advance health equity, local health departments must systematically address power imbalances, racism, and other forms of oppression. To do so, they must transform how they work internally, with communities, and alongside other government agencies. To support this challenging work, we developed this set of strategic practices (read more about our process).
Tips to Apply the Strategic Practices in Your Work
- There isn’t a step-by-step set of instructions to advance health equity.
- You will have to mold these strategic practices to fit your local context, and then refine and adapt as the context shifts.
- Use these strategic practices together, strategically, through an intentional and adaptive process to achieve your goals.
Build Internal
Infrastructure
Mobilize data, research, and evaluation to make the case for, assess, and inform interventions for health equity
Build understanding and capacity to advance equity across the department and workforce
Change internal practices and align internal processes to advance equity
Prioritize improving the social determinants of health through upstream policy change
Allocate resources to advance equity
Work Across
Government
Build alliances with other government agencies to advance equity
Develop a shared analysis with other agencies about government’s role in creating health equity
Broaden the administrative and regulatory scope of public health and other agency practices to advance health equity
Foster Community
Partnerships
Build strategic community relationships, share power and decision making, and spark meaningful participation
Build alliances with community partners to protect against risk and build community power
Engage strategically in social justice campaigns and movements to advance equity
Champion Transformative
Change
Confront power imbalances and the racial and other forms of oppression used to maintain those imbalances
Develop leadership, support innovation, and reward strategic risk taking to advance equity
Change the conversation about what creates health equity within public health, across government, and in communities
Join with others in public health to build a health equity movement
