June 2018 Volume 3 Issue 1 HEALTH EQUITY GUIDE REVIEW Cynthia Stone, DrPH, RN; Danielle Boberschmidt 46 Under Build Organizational Capacity 2. Strategic practice change of internal practices and processes to align internal processes to advance equity. 3. Prioritize upstream policy change to improve the social determinants of health. 4. Build awareness of the connection between the social determinants and health with different audiences, including health department staff, healthcare institutions, government agencies, elected officials and community stakeholders. 5. Allocate resources to advance equity for health equity staff positions and to track and align resources. Under Work Across Government to Advance Health Equity 6. Build government alliances with other gov- ernment agencies to advance equity through training. 7. Develop a shared analysis with other agencies about government’s role in creating health eq- uity. 8. Broaden the administrative and regulatory scope of public health and other agency practic- es to advance health equity. Under Foster Community Partnerships to Advance Human Impact Partners (HIP) has led the development of a partnership that produced the Health Equity Guide (HIPP-a 2017). The guide includes five key organizing concepts that include the following: • Mobilize data, research, and evaluation • Building internal infrastructure to advance health equity • Work across government to advance health equity • Foster community partnerships to advance health equity • Champion transformative change to advance health equity Under the five main concepts there are 15 strategic practices and key actions that local health departments can use to advance health equity within their organizations and with their community partners (HIP, 2017). The fifteen strategies include: Under Mobilize data research, and evaluation: 1. Mobilize data, research, and evaluation to make the case for, assess, and inform interventions for health equity. Health Equity Guide Review Stone; Boberschmidt 47 Health Equity 9. Share power with communities by building stra- tegic community relationships, sharing power and decision making, and sparking meaningful participation. 10. Build community alliances with community partners to protect against risk and build com- munity power. 11. Engage in movements such as social justice campaigns and movements to advance equity by providing data and conducting research, as well as advocating in support of community partners’ interests. Under Champion Transformative Change to Advance Health Equity 12. Confront the root causes of power imbalances and the racial and other forms of oppression used to maintain those imbalances. 13. Develop leadership and support innovation and reward strategic risk taking to advance eq- uity. 14. Change the conversation about what creates health equity within public health, across gov- ernment, and in communities. 15. Build a health equity movement by joining with others in public health to build a health equity movement to advance justice and equity (Human Impact Partners-a, 2017). The Health Equity Guide cautions that the guide is not advocating to be a step by step guide, but for organi- zations to use the provided suggestions to model their own organizational path to improving health equity. The “Ways to Get Started Guide” provides additional details. For example, in the Actions to Build Internal Infrastructure to Advance Health Equity the sugges- tions include: Creating a team; developing a plan; documenting inequities; leveraging existing staffing; leverage existing funding; using equity tools, survey- ing your staff, organizing a training and changing your forms (HealthEquityGuide, 2017 ). One resource rec- ommended to use for this step is the Bay Area Region- al Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) Organizational Self- Assessment Toolkit (2010). The HealthEquityGuide.org website provides informa- tion on the strategic practices, and provides over 25 case studies from local health departments (HIPP-b, 2017). The website also has over 150 interactive re- sources you can search by key concepts (HIPP-c). The website also provides a link to recordings from a four part webinar series that reviewed the strategic prac- tices and presented related case study examples. The partners on the webinar series included the Govern- ment Alliance on Race and Equity, the National Collab- orative for Health Equity, and the National Association of County and City Health Officers’ Health Equity and Social Justice Committee (HIP, 2017) The HealthEquityGuide is a useful tool for health impact assessment (HIA) practitioners so they can implement and advocate with local health depart- ment partners. Health equity is a key value of HIAs and the Human Impact Partners Project states that “used collectively, these strategic practices can help local health departments systematically address power imbalances, racism, and other forms of op- pression which are at the root of health inequities” (HealthEquityGuide.org: A Human Impact Partners Project-a, 2017, p.# 4). Health Equity Guide Review Stone; Boberschmidt 48 References Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative. (2010). Organizational Self-Assessment Toolkit. Available from: http:// barhii.org/download/toolkit/self_assessment_toolkit.pdf Human Impact Partners. (2017). Advancing Health Equity in Local Health Departments: 4-Part Webinar Series. Available from: https://humanimpact.org/hipprojects/hegwebinars2017/ Human Impact Partners Project-a. (2017). Strategic Practices and Actions to Advance Health Equity in Local Health Departments. HealthEquityGuide.org. Available from: https://healthequityguide.org/ Human Impact Partners Project-b. (2017). Health Equity Guide Case Studies. Available from: https://healthequityguide. org/case-studies/ Human Impact Partners Project-c (2017). Health Equity Guide Resources. Available from: https://healthequityguide.org/ resources/ CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Cynthia Stone, DrPH, RN Department of Health Policy and Management, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis 1050 Wishard Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46202 317.278.0761 cylstone@iu.edu CHIA Staff: Editor-in-Chief Cynthia Stone, DrPH, RN, Professor, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Journal Manager Angela Evertsen, BA, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Chronicles of Health Impact Assessment Vol. 3 Issue 1 (2018) DOI: 10.18060/21777 © 2018 Author(s): Stone, C.; Boberschmidt, D. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License