Health Equity Blog Series: Digging into data for Asian American and Native Hawaiian &amp; Pacific Islander Communities

Health Equity Blog Series: Speaking with Dr. Aisha Langford about health decision making during COVID-19 (and beyond)

Health Equity Blog Series: Overcoming Historical Barriers to Neighborhood Health Equity

<div class="WordSection1">
<h3>This is the third blog in the Dashboard’s Health Equity Blog Series, a new, regular feature exploring issues impacting health and health equity across America’s cities and diverse communities.</h3>

<hr /><p style="margin-bottom: 11px;">The City Health Dashboard has prioritized equity since the start. As public health researchers and practitioners, we know that health improvement for all must be centered around improving health equity, specifically among communities of color. Since the beginning of the Dashboard initiative, we have acknowledged these realities and prioritized equity through our metrics, which represent many core social, economic, and environmental drivers of health. But in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, and the national public reckoning that followed in the summer of 2020, we have refined and are now sharing our anti-racism goals to be transparent and remain accountable to the cities, communities, and people we serve.<br />
 </p>

<h2>Defining Equity and Anti-Racism</h2>

<p>First, we want to get specific about what we mean with terms like equity, health equity, and anti-racism.</p>

<p>Unlike equality, which implies that everyone gets the same thing, equity recognizes that not all people have the same opportunities to thrive. More specifically, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation <a href="https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2017/05/what-is-health-equity-.html">defines <em>health</em> equity</a> as “conditions where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing systemic obstacles to health, such as poverty and discrimination, as well as their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care. <strong>Thus, improving health equity means reducing and ultimately eliminating disparities in health and its determinants that adversely affect excluded or marginalized groups.</strong>” One of the Dashboard’s goals is to raise awareness of local, inequitable conditions in order to reduce and eliminate disparities in health and its drivers.</p>

<p>Anti-racism is an active practice of creating policies, practices and procedures to promote racial equity. To be merely “not racist” is passive; it fails to address hundreds of years of U.S. history and ongoing oppression. This summary from the National League of Cities Racial Equity and Leadership department – <a href="https://www.nlc.org/article/2020/07/21/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-anti-racist/">What Does it Mean to Be an Anti-racist?</a> – is an excellent primer on anti-racism and very much in line with our approach at the Dashboard. Recognizing the different types of racism – individual, interpersonal, institutional and structural – is a critical piece in building a path forward.</p>

<h2>Spheres of Influence</h2>

<p>Every person, team and organization has a role in advancing equity, and the Dashboard team started with determining our “spheres of influence.” What types of levers do we have access to as a team in the system of racism? For our team, they are:</p>
</div>

<div>
<ul><li>Hiring</li>
	<li>Staff training</li>
	<li>Internal work culture</li>
	<li>Grants and contracting</li>
	<li>Research and data</li>
	<li>Partnerships</li>
	<li>External communications</li>
	<li>Education</li>
	<li>Academia and publishing</li>
</ul></div>

<p>We set aside time to learn, discuss, and develop short and long-term goals in each area. For example, here are short-term goals that the Dashboard created and met over the last year across two of our spheres, Hiring and External Communications:</p>

<blockquote>
<h3><u><strong>Hiring</strong></u></h3>

<ul><li>Expand reach of job posts to include HBCUs, affinity organizations at non-HBCUs, and hiring websites focused on recruiting diverse applicants.</li>
	<li>Name-blind all resumes, including any connections or referrals.</li>
	<li>Standardize a rubric for scoring each resume and interview.</li>
	<li>Standardize interview structure and questions.<br />
	 </li>
</ul></blockquote>

<blockquote>
<h3><u><strong>Communications</strong></u></h3>

<ul><li>Develop a standardized style guide for how we write about race/ethnicity, disparities, and demographic differences.</li>
	<li>Intentionally use our digital platforms (ex. Website, Twitter, Email, LinkedIn) to highlight racism and injustice, as well as to center the voices of people of color and organizations serving these groups.</li>
	<li>Launch the Health Equity Blog Series (February 2021), a recurring feature exploring issues impacting health and equity in diverse communities around the country. This blog is the 3rd in the series, and you can read our previous Health Equity blogs <a href="/stories?page=0&amp;storyType=ac82a380-d557-41f7-a7f2-7820429bec99">here</a>.<br />
	 </li>
</ul></blockquote>

<h2>Long-term Commitments</h2>

<p>We know that articulating anti-racist intentions isn’t the same as implementing thoughtful changes, but we are committed to working together to ensure that the Dashboard truly reflects our values and actively moves communities towards achieving equity. We will continue refining our goals and actions within our spheres of influence, and also currently have two overarching goals to inform our work moving forward:</p>

<ol><li>Keep equity and anti-racism at the center of our work. This will ensure that the City Health Dashboard reflects the anti-racist values at its foundation by systematically assessing all areas within our influence. This includes rethinking the language on our site and how we communicate our data, as well as other components.<br />
	 </li>
	<li>Deepen collaboration with communities and other partners with lived experience of racial and social inequities, and build upon shared values to ensure the relevance and utility of our work in advancing health equity. </li>
</ol><p> </p>

<p>We welcome discussion and feedback on our process and goals. <a href="mailto:info@cityhealthdashboard.com">Reach out to us anytime</a>.</p>


Health Equity Blog Series: The City Health Dashboard’s Commitment to Equity and Anti-Racism

Sep. 21, 2021

City Health Dashboard

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Health Equity Blog Series: Digging into data for Asian American and Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Communities

Health Equity Blog Series: Speaking with Dr. Aisha Langford about health decision making during COVID-19 (and beyond)

Health Equity Blog Series: Overcoming Historical Barriers to Neighborhood Health Equity