National Collaborative for Health Equity www.nationalcollabortive.org

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This Presentation is Divided into Four Parts:

Part I Health inequities and their Root Causes

Part II – Eliminating Health Inequities

Part III – PLACE MATTERS: A Brief History

Part IV- PLACE MATTERS: Advancing Health Equity

Part I- Health inequities and their root causes

Health Inequities and their Root Causes

Poor transportation policies Housing segregation Poverty Racism Education Economic opportunity Access to healthy food Community safety/violence Land use and the built environment

Negative Effects of Racial Segregation

on Health

Concentrates poverty African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos are more likely to reside in

poorer neighborhoods regardless of income level.

Restricts socio-economic opportunity

Decreases healthy food access

Increases the likelihood to be exposed to environmental hazards 56% of residents in neighborhoods with commercial hazardous waste facilities

are low- income and/or people of color even though they comprise less than 30% of the U.S. population

Costs more- The “Poverty Tax”

Part II – Eliminating Health Inequities

Examples of policy strategies

Examples of Policy Strategies

1. Increase understanding of the social determinants 2. Consistent Monitoring

3. Aggressively tackle poverty by fully funding programs

4. Adopt land use policies

5. Promote housing mobility

How to advance health equity cont. Examples of Policy Strategies

6. Facilitate access to affordable housing

7. Keep youth in school and reduce risks for involvement in juvenile justice and criminal justice systems

8. Implement a public financing program

9. Increase the capacity of communities to hold decision makers accountable

10. Require public decision makers and program implementers to consider the impacts of proposed actions on racial/ethnic equity

PART III- PLACE MATTERS: A Brief History

What is PLACE MATTERS?PLACE MATTERS is a national learning community made up of 19 multi-sector teams from 27 jurisdictions that began in 2006 with a generous grant from W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

What is PLACE MATTERS?Place Matters seeks to focus attention on the root causes of health inequities and to improve neighborhood conditions for health by: Building coalitions; Raising public awareness of the inequitable

distribution of health resources and risks across communities;

Identifying and building support for evidence –based policy solutions.

Our Mission

To build the capacity of leaders and communities to identify

and address social, economic, and environmental conditions

that shape health and life opportunities

Our Vision

Every community is socially and racially just and there are equitable opportunities for all.

EquityEnvironment

Health

PLACE MATTERS Model

14

Access toHealthy

Food

Schools/Child care

Health facilities

CommunitySafety/ violence

TransportationTraffic patterns

Work environments

Housing

Parks/OpenSpace playgrounds

PLACE MATTERS Objectives Engage communities to increase their

collective capacity to identify and advocate for community-based strategies to address health inequities;

Support and inform efforts to establish data-driven strategies and data-based outcomes to measure our progress; and

Establish a national learning community of practice to accelerate applications of successful strategies.

PLACE MATTERS ACTION Labs ACTION Labs held in PLACE MATTERS sites Designed as a means to form a national

learning community aimed at highlighting effective strategies through shared learning

Teams receive expert technical assistance (TA) Peer networking and collaborative learning

across PLACE MATTERS communities through discussion and strategizing sessions

Part IV- PLACE MATTERS: Advancing Health Equity

Examples of team work and successes

PLACE MATTERS Advancing Health Equity

• Engaging the media to elevate health equity issues.• Promoting equity in all policies. We advocate for the revision

of adverse policies and enforcement of equitable conditions that foster good health for all.

• Building broad coalitions to advance health equity issues.• Promoting the use of data. We use quality of life or social

determinants indicators to allocate resources and to make decisions.

• Allocating resources and making decisions. We raise funds to invest in sustainable place-based initiatives.

• Holding elected officials and policymakers accountable for healthy communities.

• Conducting interdisciplinary research shaped by community engagement. In partnership with communities, we conduct research to document the geographic distribution of health, health risks, and health resources across communities, and we assess their relationship to residential segregation.

MLKing County, WA Equity and Social Justice Ordinance

In February 2008, the King County team worked with the County Executive to create the Equity and Social Justice Initiative.

The team developed the Equity Impact Review tool (EIR), “a process and a tool to identify, evaluate, and communicate the potential impact - both positive and negative - of a policy or program on equity.”

In 2010, in large part as a result of the success of the initiative, the county council passed the ordinance identifies 14 determinants of equity and requires that all county government agencies work to ensure that all residents have equal access to these determinants.

Boston, MA: Building Coalitions

Housed within and led by the Boston Public Health Commission’s (BPHC) Center for Health Equity & Social Justice

Commission spent over two years collaborating with the PLACE MATTERS team, social marketing consultants, and an artist, with feedback from community coalitions• THE RESULT- billboards, posters, and signs that

contained only a zip code and the “What’s Your Health Code” web address.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, AL: PLACE MATTERS Community Health Equity

ReportCommunity Health Equity Reports (CHERs) provide a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic, and environmental conditions in different areas around the country and documents their relationship to the health status of that area's residents.

• The Jefferson County Community Health Equity Report (CHER) was prepared by the National Collaborative and the Jefferson County PLACE MATTERS team (Housed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham)

• The study examined the relationships between place, race and health over the past 50 years in the region, a county that encompasses the state’s capitol city, Birmingham.

Autumn Saxton-Ross, PhDProgram Director, Place-Based InitiativesNational Collaborative for Health Equity asaxton-ross@nationalcollaborative.org

202.789.3533