To learn more about health equity and community engagement and how to pursue them in your community, check out these resources.

Equity

Health equity means that everyone has the opportunity to reach their highest level of health. To achieve health equity, we must ensure everyone has access to a quality education, good jobs, safe housing and neighborhoods, and affordable and quality healthcare.

• American Hospital Association’s Social Determinants of Health Series: Provides resources, such as reports, webinars and case studies, to help hospitals address the social determinants of health.
• ChangeLab Solutions’ Uprooting Inequity Webinar Series: This series looks at the structural drivers of health inequity in six key areas: community health, employment, education, planning, food systems, or housing.
• Florida Office of Minority Health: Provides funding opportunities and designates Minority Health liaisons in each county in Florida.
• Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE): GARE provides a number of tools and resources aimed at understanding and addressing racial inequities. Resources include a manual for developing racial equity action plans, best practices in contracting for equity and more.
• NACCHO Toolbox: A free, searchable collection of public health tools. You can search and filter by keyword, toolkit name, state where the resource originated and date of upload.
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO): NACCHO provides a variety of resources to understand what health equity is and how we might achieve it. The Health Equity 101 Online Training Series was developed to build knowledge and inform the practices of health departments and their partners on health equity and social justice key concepts, principles and applications.
• Unnatural Causes: A collection of health equity resources.

Community Engagement

• Community Tool Box: Provides resources and tools to improve community health through collaboration. Run by the University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development.
• Multi-Sectoral Alliance Resource Compendium (National Alliance to Impact the Social Determinants of Health): Provides support to those looking to understand, form and efficiently use multi-sectoral alliances to address the social determinants of health, or the conditions where we live, work and play.
• Principles of Community Engagement (Second Edition): “provides public health professionals, health care providers, researchers, and community-based leaders and organizations with both a science base and practical guidance for engaging partners in projects that may affect them.”
• UF Citizen Scientist Program: Help bridge the gap between researchers and community members by becoming a Citizen Scientist! Citizen Scientists may contribute to research by reviewing a research proposal, providing feedback on patient recruitment strategies, or sitting on a committee or workgroup. UF’s Citizen Scientist curriculum is available free to anyone.

Evidence-Based Practices to Improve Health

• Healthy People 2030: Sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade. Browse evidence-based practices to address health issues.
• The Community Guide: A collection of evidence-based findings to improve community health from the Community Preventive Services Task Force.
• What Works for Health: This tool from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows evidence-based policies and programs for a variety of health topics, such as diet and exercise, community safety, or access to health care. You can search by topic and evidence rating (Scientifically Supported, Some Evidence, Insufficient Evidence, Mixed Evidence, etc.). You can also look at the Disparity Rating to get a sense of how a strategy will likely impact disparities or gaps among socioeconomic groups, racial or ethnic groups, or geographic areas (i.e., urban vs. rural).