Applying a "social determinants of health" framework to a community-based health equity project

The Youth Health Equity Project (YHEP) takes a practical “social determinants of health” approach to addressing health disparities. Youth participants in the project chose to focus on youth employment because of its long-term effects on their future careers and, therefore, their future health status, and because of its short-term effects on their family income. The project aims to increase employment opportunities by partnering with local businesses to provide more jobs to youth, organizing to change city and state policies, and creating a training curriculum for youth and employers to address racism, classism, and ageism in the workplace. This project is a model for how to translate social determinants of health theory into practical work for social justice. The poster will focus on the role of the curriculum within the larger YHEP and the ways in which it connects health and health disparities to employment and racism in the immediate context of the workplace. It will also highlight the importance of bringing discussions of social determinants of health to the community level to encourage grassroots involvement in social justice projects. The specific objectives of the curriculum are to facilitate youths' development of skills to effectively deal with racism, classism, and ageism on the job; to work with youth and employers to better understand racism, classism, ageism, and health inequities as parts of systems of oppression and facilitate development of tools for them to address these issues; to challenge employers to change their behavior based on these new understandings.