Improving Health for All: Changing the culture of a local public health department to address health inequities

Championing an innovative approach to staff development to meet the challenge of addressing health inequities in a large diverse county, Riverside County Department of Public Health (RCDOPH) advanced a training series to foster a deep understanding of the social determinants of health and build commitment to eliminate health inequities.. Using a similar training developed by Alameda County Department of Public Health as a template, RCDOPH developed the Improving Health for All (IHA) curriculum as a set of staff-driven and staff-created trainings that provide basic public health education necessary to achieve a workforce capable of addressing health inequities.

With full administrative support, this 6-part mandatory training outlines the public health system, its core functions and 10 essential services, cultural competency and cultural humility, the history of race and racism in the United States, the social determinants of health and health equity. Through facilitated exercises, these trainings promote dialogue around issues such as racism, discrimination, homophobia, the built environment and their correlation with health disparities and outcomes. IHA was launched in 2011 and is regularly updated based on evaluation results and new information, for example how this curriculum fits into RCDOPH’s Workforce Development Plan required for PHAB accreditation.

This presentation details steps taken to develop a novel training series designed for public health staff and includes detailed steps towards the development of IHA and facilitators guides; it covers successes and challenges in design, implementation, facilitation, budgetary concerns, barriers, curriculum assessment and staff response, and ends with a discussion of summative evaluation results.