Progress Moving Forward with the National Partnership for Action

"We are united by missions to protect and improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.” These inspirational words appear in the foreword of the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity (NSS) part of the National Partnership for Action (NPA). The NPA is a multi-year process to mobilize a comprehensive, community-driven, sustained approach to combat health inequities in the United States. The impetus for establishing the NPA as a national movement grew in response to the voices of thousands of leaders urging, actually demanding, coordinated action. Under the broad umbrella of the NPA, partners within and beyond the health sector are leveraging their missions and resources around five goals and twenty strategies. The goals are: awareness; leadership; health system and life experience; cultural and linguistic competency; and data, research and evaluation. Best practices and milestones are being reported and tracked across the country. Alignment with other national plans is deliberate and ongoing. Over the decades, many people have worked to end health disparities, but unlike many countries, the United States has never had a national approach. The NPA will describe opportunities to effectively communicate the message that health disparity exists, and that achieving health equity benefits all Americans.