Build Strategic Partnerships

How public health departments can leverage relationships across government and foster accountable relationships with communities to advance health equity and racial justice

As governmental agencies, public health departments are well positioned to hold strategic partnerships across both government and community. At the heart of these partnerships, when effective, are authentic relationships between people. These relationships can take time to develop, especially in communities that are most harmed by injustice — move at the speed of trust!

Health equity and racial justice require working through cross-agency partnerships because many of the systems that create health inequities and structural racism are mostly outside of health departments’ direct responsibility. However, many government agencies are not accustomed to, or don’t see the need to, think about their policy-making in the context of health for important areas, like housing, policing, economic development and environmental policies. “Health (and Equity) in all Policies” (HiAP) is a framework that can help health departments build strategic partnerships across government agencies to improve the social determinants of health.

It is essential for health departments to be grounded in authentic relationships with communities. These community partnerships and alliances can be formal or informal, but health departments must be accountable to community. Health departments, like all government agencies, play a critical role in redressing harm in communities and advancing health equity and racial justice, because they have been instrumental in creating and maintaining oppressive and harmful policies and structures. Community power-building organizations are particularly strategic partners and can help establish accountability and guide health departments in strategically leveraging cross-agency collaborations to advance health equity and racial justice.

Action Steps health departments can take to build strategic partnerships:

• Use One-to-Ones, an effective community organizing tactic for building authentic and trusting interpersonal relationships with new partners; introduce colleagues to partners and encourage them to build direct relationships
• Establish trusting and accountable partnerships with community organizers and community power-building organizations, moving at the speed of trust, by identifying organizations whose campaigns advance health equity, attending their events, paying members for their time and expertise, and being upfront about what your agency is ready and able to support
• Assess and deepen your community partnerships by assessing where you are along the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, what you can do to move further, and how to meaningfully center the voices of the people experiencing health inequities
• Develop strategic relationships across government with people in other agencies who are working on equity and racial justice, and build awareness of the connection between the social determinants and health with other government agencies and elected officials
• Prioritize and deepen interagency government collaborations to strategically advance a health equity policy agenda: ask community organizers and partners for recommendations in which government agencies to prioritize based on active community-led campaigns, and make sure follow your agency’s policies about engaging with other government agencies or elected officials