227126 Health equity and prevention primer: Advancing public health advocacy to eliminate inequities in health and safety

Monday, November 8, 2010 : 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM

Virginia Lee, MPH, CHES , Prevention Institute, Oakland, CA
Manal Aboelata, MS , Prevention Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Omar Sahak , Prevention Institute, Oakland, CA
Policy development is a core public health function and a strategy for transforming community conditions to foster equitable health and safety outcomes. However, it is often underutilized by local and state health departments. Prevention Institute, with guidance from National Association of County and City Health Officials'(NACCHO) Health Equity and Social Justice Strategic Direction Team, set out to understand and address the capacity needs of health departments for addressing inequities. Literature and document reviews and semi-structured interviews with a representative national sample of health departments aimed to uncover recurring themes in barriers, assets, and goals of health departments related to health equity. The predominant themes that emerged centered on the need for multi-sector collaboration; building awareness of the relationship between social determinants of health, health inequities, and the advocacy role of public health departments; the importance of policy to advance health equity; and the role of leadership in pushing forward an equity-based agenda. In this presentation, Prevention Institute will share an online learning tool, Health Equity and Prevention Primer (HEPP), consisting of an equity-focused curriculum and collection of resources. It utilizes an innovative technology-based approach for bringing an equity lens to the field of public health. It is particularly designed to overcome the time and budgetary constraints that many public health departments and related sectors face when attempting to engage in primary prevention for building equity. Embedded in HEPP are prevention frameworks, promising practices and tools and resources for building their capacity to achieve equitable health and safety outcomes.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Public health or related education
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss the importance of and challenges to integrating equity into health and safety efforts. 2. Critique the Health Equity and Prevention Primer, an online learning curriculum and resource tool. 3. Identify potential audiences and uses of the Health Equity and Prevention Primer to strengthen the capacity of practitioners and advocates to advance health equity.

Keywords: Health Disparities, Primary Prevention

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Virginia Lee, MPH, CHES oversees the Health Equity and Prevention Primer project as well as others related to community health and health equity, healthy eating and active living, and preventing injury and violence. She provides training, technical assistance, and consultation to government agencies, community collaboratives, healthcare organizations, and foundations on advancing prevention approaches to achieve equitable health and safety outcomes.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.