Oral

Throughout the world, certain populations bear a disproportionate burden of disease and mortality, lack adequate and affordable health care coverage, face barriers to access to quality, and seek knowledge about how to eat healthy and be physically active on a daily basis. Public health departments strive daily to address the needs of these populations, and although good intention is plentiful, adequate resources and organizational capacity are not. To alleviate this shortfall, many health departments are working collaboratively with private sector and community-based organizations to leverage resources, increase the knowledge base, and reach a greater proportion of the population. However, a major challenge facing state and local public health agencies is how to effectively partner with other organizations, agencies, and groups to leverage limited resources to fulfill their missions. In Colorado, several private and community-based entities have engaged in the challenge of redressing health disparities in outcomes and access; this session will highlight several of those interventions and groups as examples of approaches that leverage private resources when public budgets and will are severely constrained. Listed as one of the 10 Essential Public Health Services, “mobilizing community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems” has become an identified critical function of a successful health department. Additionally, proposed standards for national voluntary accreditation list collaborative processes among the many that public health agencies must meet for accreditation. Mobilizing community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems means clearly stating the importance of identifying stakeholders to public health and involving them in the process; building coalitions to strengthen human and material resources; and facilitating partnerships among groups and associations (some who may be atypical partners). In turn, a new set of public health approaches are being developed to appropriately assess how an array of diverse partners are collectively and systematically addressing complex public health problems and social injustices. In this special session, private sector and community leaders from Colorado will discuss their local, state, and regional efforts to alleviate social injustice. Recognizing that to address the social, economic, environmental, human rights, and cultural contributors to health and disease, the community must work together collaboratively, these speakers present a diverse, yet coordinated array of examples of how the sectors can compliment one another to reach these goals.

Session Objectives: Describe the role of the private and nonprofit sector in increasing community capacity to alleviate social justice issues in public health. Demonstrate highlights from past and current work in Colorado that leverages resources between the public, private, and nonprofit sector to alleviate social injustice in public health. Discuss the way the private and nonprofit sector can work collaboratively with public health to alleviate social injustice.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)