Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their full health potential and that no one is disadvantaged, excluded, or dismissed from achieving this potential. At Prevention Institute, we focus on how structural drivers of inequity—such as racism, sexism, and income inequality—impact communities. And we support community-based organizations and advocates in building power and capacity to change the systems that created these inequities in the first place.
Racial justice is a primary focus of Prevention Institute’s health equity work because racism, discrimination, and other forms of racial injustice have resulted in dramatic health and safety disparities for communities of color. Without closing racially unjust gaps in health outcomes, we will not be able to achieve health, safety, and wellbeing for our nation as a whole.
Our work is implemented through partnerships and collaborations with coalitions, public health departments, and community-based organizations; and centers the lived experiences of communities whose voices have been historically excluded and underrepresented. We bring our tools and frameworks to inform and build capacity toward effective prevention, racial justice, and health equity strategy development. Our staff are our champions who bring both professional and personal experience to the table and help shape equity solutions that support community health, safety, and wellbeing
Park equity—fair and just access to parks, trails, community gardens, and other green spaces—is essential to healthy communities. But park inequities unjustly affect low-income communities across the U.S., especially people living in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. Through our local-level projects and national initiatives, we are building momentum for park equity.
Drawing on interviews with grassroots leaders from across the country, this report explores how the political landscape, funding, staff skills, leadership, and partnerships influence the ability of community-based organizations to work effectively with public health agencies to address health inequities and racial injustices.
Our approach to water equity connects a range of environmental and social issues whose challenges and solutions are interwoven, from drinking water quality and stormwater management to urban greening and fiscal equity. It also recognizes the full spectrum of disparate environmental conditions that negatively impact the health of low-income communities of color—including air, soil and water pollution and disparities in natural and recreational amenities—and considers how system-level solutions may address or compound inequities.
In this brief, Countering the Production of Health Inequities: Ensuring the Opportunity for Health for All, Prevention Institute analyzes how various sectors such as housing, education, and economic development have contributed to inequities in health but also have important roles to play in achieving health equity. There is a role for every institution, sector, and system working together to achieve an equitable culture of health across the United States.
Prevention Institute envisions a society where health equity and recial justice are integral to public health initiatives, ensuring that all individuals have fair opportunities to achieve their full
This PI-authored article published in the Journal of Public Health Policy’s special issue on Violence and Health: Merging Evidence and Implementation details how comprehensive strategies to improve community conditions can reduce violence and promote health equity. It describes how PI tools and frameworks, used by our Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY) cities, can be adapted for international application in multi-sector collaboration, influencing policy and legislation, and strengthening local violence prevention efforts.
In Healthy Development without Displacement: Realizing the Vision of Healthy Communities for All, we explore: What can people working on “healthy community” issues—like active transportation, parks, healthy food, planning, public health, healthcare, and more—do in their own work to improve community conditions without contributing to gentrification and displacement?
This report offers research, analysis, frameworks, and practitioner wisdom to understand the factors in the community environment that support safe relationships and a reduction in domestic violence (DV). It identifies opportunities for 13 sectors to engage in DV prevention, and offers a method for multiple sectors to identify joint strengths, strategies, and outcomes. The paper presents an overarching approach to advancing a health equity and multisector approach to DV prevention, and identifies broad elements and immediate next steps to move this approach forward.
Welcome to module 7, Good Health Counts: Measurement and Evaluation for Health Equity. Here you will learn about community health indicators and how they can be used to assess and monitor conditions that influence health and safety. We will highlight a number of indicator reports that have been used to advance health equity efforts.
Welcome to Module 6, The Importance of Local Policy for Achieving Equitable Outcomes. In this module, we will look at why policy--at the city and county levels, in particular—is important to health equity efforts. Then, we will provide an overview of 4 key strategies in the policy development process.
Join us in advancing health equity and community empowerment — get in touch today to support the Prevention Institute’s efforts.