Module 1: Health Equity

A general introduction to health equity, the information in this step is accessible, which means that you can listen to a podcast on your morning walk, download a resource to help your client or get a short audio summary of an article that caught your eye before fully engaging with the reading.

Interactive Virtual Learning

To learn more about health equity and ways that it exists in the U.S., start by watching the American Psychological Association’s (APA) webinar, The Case for Advancing Health Equity: Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Health Inequities. In this 54-minute webinar, Dr. Brian Smedley discusses health equity as a process rather than an outcome. He also provides important definitions and a timeline with key historical facts that help to understand the multiple systems where health inequities exist. Dr. Smedley presents on the causes and effects of health disparities in vulnerable populations and provides action steps for eliminating health inequities within health care settings.

Here are some key topics:

• Racism and Health Inequity
• Implicit Bias and Stereotyping
• Anti-Black and Pro-White Biases

In the CDC  Webinar COVID-19 Response Promising Practices in Health Equity Webinar (64 min), the presenters, Dr. Nafissa Cisse Egbuonye (Public Health Director Black Hawk County Health Department), Dr. Jarvis Chen (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health), Dr. Thomas LaViest (School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Dean, Tulane University), and T. Benicio Gonzales, MSW (Louisville Metro Department of Public Health & Wellness Director, Center for Health Equity), discuss the actions their cities are taking to mitigate the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racial/ethnic minorities.

For additional webinars, we recommend that you consider engaging with some of the materials provided by the Center of Excellence (CoE) for Integrated Health Solutions. In our Past Events tab, there are multiple webinar recordings available to watch on-demand as well as webinar slides which include additional resources.

Additional Webinars

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) provides webinars on a broad range of emerging trends and issues affecting state and territorial public health.

Here are some of the topics that you may choose from:

• Comprehensive and Equitable Access to OUD Care and Treatment (59:27 min)
• Adolescent Mental Health During COVID-19 (59:08 min)
• The Rise of Stimulant Overdoses and Harm Reduction (61 min)
• The Trends of Overdose Data During COVID-19 (58:05 min)
• Expanded PFAS Exposure Assessments in Pennsylvania Communities (21:50 min)
• 10 Building Blocks of Early Childhood Nutrition: Strategies to Promote Breastfeeding (58:36 min)
• Innovative State Strategies for Diabetes Prevention (79 min)
• Use of Telehealth for Substance Use Disorder Treatment in Maternal and Child Populations (52:09 min)
• OMNI Learning Community: Engaging Primary Care Associations and Federally Qualified Health Centers (52:36 min)
• ASTHOConnects Session #2: Working Across Boundaries to Incorporate an Equity Lens to Breastfeeding Initiatives (46:34 min)
• OMNI Learning Community ASTHOConnect: Successful Models Integrating Maternal Care and Substance Use Treatment (57:48 min)
• Social Determinants of Health: Financing Interventions and Strategies for States (54:25 min)
• ASTHOConnects Session #1: ASTHO Breastfeeding Learning Community (62 min)

The Center for LGBTQ+ Health Equity (CLHE) at The University of Southern California put together a 2-minute video to discuss the impact of minority stress on LGBTQ+ identifying individuals during the first 18 years of their lives.

They provide some additional learning resources focused on the following topics:

• School discipline as a social determinant of health and reframe school-based restorative justice (23 min)
• LGBT teens facing bullying (35 min)
• Neoliberal ideology and its impact on youth sexuality (33 min)
• Mental Health Disparities among Gay Youth: A Developmental Interpretation and Application of the Minority Stress Hypothesis (95 min)

Podcasts

Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is a licensed psychologist, speaker and the host of the wildly popular mental health podcast, Therapy for Black Girls. Her work focuses on some weekly chats about mental health and professional development.

Here are some relevant sessions as we discuss health equity and COVID-19:

• Session 21: How Racism Impacts Our Mental Health (15:15 min)
• Session 27: Mental Health and Terrorism (18:22 min)
• Session 42: Race-Related Stress (33:04 min)
• Session 46: Mental Health Needs of Activists (43:19 min)
• Session 49: Angry Black Women (34:43 min)
• Session 134: Impact of Racial Trauma (38:27 min)
• Session 148: Talking to Kids About Race (28:58 min)
• Session 161: Parenting in a Pandemic (42:25 min)
• Session 162: Processing Our Collective Grief (38:56 min)
• Session 165: Let’s Chill with the Quarantine 15 Jokes (39:24 min)
• Session 183: Seasonal Depression During the Pandemic (44:43 min)

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials podcast series features health officials and public health leaders who are on the front lines of state and territorial public health.

Here are some of the topics that you may choose from:

• Addressing Housing Challenges and Economic Insecurity During COVID-19 (34:45 min)
• Using Prevention Strategies to Help Families Thrive (27 min)
• Improving Care to Address Maternal and Child Lead Exposure (30:26 min)
• Addressing Rural Health Disparities in a Pandemic (32:22 min)
• Fostering Equitable Change During COVID-19 (31:46 min)
• How COVID-19 Exposed the Gaps in Substance Use Care (29:45 min)
• The Next Surge: The Behavioral Health Crisis Following COVID-19 (36:11 min)
• Promoting Well-Being and Reducing Risk Post-COVID-19 (28:13 min)
• Lessons from the Trenches: Leading During a Public Health Crisis (33:57 min)
• The Importance of Public Health Surveillance in Responding to Overdoses (27:59 min)
• COVID-19 Highlights Urgent Need for Increased Public Health Funding (23:27 min)
• Tobacco 21 and Flavor Restrictions: What Actually Happened? (34:45 min)
• Ecosystem of Care: Providing Behavioral Health Services to Pregnant Women (24:39 min)

The School of Public Health at The University of Michigan put together a special edition of their podcast Population Healthy to discuss the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic. They have a range of episodes and take about 5-30 minutes to listen to.

Here are some relevant sessions as we discuss health equity and COVID-19:

• Coronavirus Hits Home: How the Pandemic Impacts Housing and Health (10 min)
• Coronavirus and Food Access: How the Pandemic Impacts Food Insecurity (24 min)
• High Risk: Homelessness in the time of Coronavirus (19 min)
• Examining the Pandemic’s Disproportionate Impact on Black Americans (11 min)

Relevant Reports

For an opportunity to dive into the topic of health equity and further understand what this looks like during the COVID-19 pandemic, take a look at the following American Psychological Association (APA) special reports:

Resources on ways to mitigate health inequities are also available.

• In the American Psychological Association (APA) COVID-19 Special Report Fighting inequity in the face of COVID-19: Psychologists are working to combat the systemic disparities that have led the virus to disproportionately affect people of color and other groups, Stephanie Pappas delves into topics of fear and discrimination, Native communities, Race and the socioeconomic divide.
• In another article, Combating bias and stigma relations to COVID-19 APA examines action steps that can be taken to stop the xenophobia, biases, and stigma that are spreading as it is related to COVID-19. Some of the action steps include: (1) Promote ethical journalism (2) Correct myths, rumors and stereotypes, and challenge those whose language promotes bias, and (3) Portray different ethnic groups in public information materials
• APA has developed a Bias, Discrimination, and Equity Resources page to support behavioral and social scientists, advocates, activists and community serving practitioners during COVID-19.

Some of the topics on this special report include:

• How COVID-19 impacts sexual and gender minorities
• How Psychologists can combat the racial inequities of the COVID-19 crisis
• How to help vulnerable populations now
• Ageism and COVID-19 fact sheet
• Serious mental illness and COVID-19: How to help your patients right now

Counseling Today article Understanding Deaf people in counseling contexts” educating other counselors about Deaf culture, the Deaf community and working with Deaf clients. The authors also provide a list of key counseling approaches, resources that list Deaf counseling and mental health organizations and books and videos for counselors.

Below is a list of the resources provided by the authors:

• ADARA (Professionals Networking for Excellence in Service Delivery with Individuals who are Deaf or HOH)
• Deaf Wellness Center (DWC)
• American Society for Deaf Children
• Children of Deaf Adults, Inc.
• Deafhood Foundation
• National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA)

Innovations in Health Equity special supplement examines the organizations and programs that are addressing social inequalities in housing, transportation, work and other parts of society that create disparate health outcomes.

You will find some of the following topics in this special supplement:

• Innovations in Health Equity and Health Philanthropy: By Faith Mitchell
• Illuminating the Health Equity Challenge: By Garth Graham, MaryLynn Ostrowski, & Alyse Sabina
• Partnering with Philanthropy in Native America: By Nick Tilsen
• Building Power, Building Health: By Doran Schrantz
• Philanthropy on the Frontlines of Ferguson: By Rev. Starsky D. Wilson
• Promoting Health Impact Assessments: By Lili Farhang & Jonathan Heller
• Building a Healthier Nail Salon Industry: By Susan McQuade, Mónica Novoa, & Charlene Obernauer
• Embracing Healing Justice in California: By Samuel Nuñez, Alejandra Gutierrez, & Emily Borg
• Ending LGBT Health Inequities: By Samantha Franklin & Andrew Lane
• Achieving Healthy Communities Through Transit Equity: By Dace West
• Using Fair Housing to Achieve Health Equity: By Kellee White & George Lipsitz
• Reducing Health Disparities in Atlanta: By Karen Minyard, Kathryn Lawler, Elizabeth Fuller, Mary Wilson, & Etha Henry

Opportunities to Improve Health Equity for Mothers, Babies and Children by The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality provide some insights on the following topics:

• Capitalize on Tax Credits for Families
• Afford Access to paid Family Medical Leave
• Prioritize Justice System Reform

Below is a list of the topics that you will find listed on ARCHE:

• What is Health Equity?
• Building a Culture of Health by Creating Opportunities for Boys and Young Men of Color
• ARCHE Culture of Health Institute for Leadership Development (CHILD) Online Training titled “Essential Tools for Health Equity Practice.”
• Getting to Equity in Obesity Prevention: A New Framework

Report fact sheets by the Allies for Reaching Community Health Equity (ARCHE) allows the readers to engage with the select topic through the report, fact sheet or training made available.

Below is a list of the topics that you will find listed on ARCHE:

• What is Health Equity?
• Building a Culture of Health by Creating Opportunities for Boys and Young Men of Color
• ARCHE Culture of Health Institute for Leadership Development (CHILD) Online Training titled “Essential Tools for Health Equity Practice.”
• Getting to Equity in Obesity Prevention: A New Framework

The American Public Health Association provides readers with some news reports, access to additional resources and action steps related to the following topics:

• Creating the Healthiest Nation: Water and Health Equity
• Creating the Healthiest Nation: Advancing Health Equity
• Creating the Healthiest Nation: Environmental Justice for All
• Creating the Healthiest Nation: Health and Educational Equity

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners Papers and Position Statements.

Resources

Now that you have a more in-depth understanding of health inequity and the steps for eliminating health inequities let’s take a look at Five Action Steps: Anti-Racism Resources for Therapists and Other Helping Professionals.

Dr. Miranda Nadeau provides five key action steps: (1) Jump in with a live training (2) Engage with a recorded training or webinar (3) Practice-wide book club (4) watch a documentary/movie together (5) Use your skills to combat racism and white supremacy. Each action step is followed by multiple links that take you along a more in-depth exploration of tools that can help facilitate the specific action step. On their Child Health Equity forum, The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners provides readers with some additional tools addressing the pediatric care of children. Some of the resources available include:

• LGBTQ Youth Resources
• Advocacy Tools for LGBTQ+ Youth
• Child & Adolescent Focused Resources

 

A list of materials and resources designed to give you a more detailed description of the application of the tools introduced in Step 2. This step requires you to engage in deeper analysis of the topic through documentaries, research articles, trainings and books. Some of the tools (e.g., research articles, books) in this step may have a cost attached and we recommend that your organization provide these tools and share the with other team members. These tools may require you to engage for longer periods of time (e.g., trainings) than initial resources.

Research Articles

To conclude, here are some academic articles and books that will allow you to immerse in the writings of healers, psychologists, therapists, community activists and social justice warriors as you decide to engage in further learning and relearning.

• In the APA Special Issue: Racial Trauma: Theory, Research, and Healing, Comas-Díaz, Hall, and Neville (2019) the authors introduce new conceptual models of racial, ethnics and Indigenous trauma that is present in People of Color and Indigenous (POCI) communities.
  • Comas-Díaz, L., Hall, G. N., & Neville, H. A. (2019). Racial trauma: Theory, research, and healing: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 74(1), 1-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000442
• Toward a Psychological Framework of Radical Healing in Communities of Color article, French and colleagues (2020) Provide context of race and racism in the United States and ways in which this impacts People of Color and Indigenous Individuals (POCI). The authors discuss healing as it integrates liberation psychology, Black psychology, ethnopolitical psychology and intersectionality theory.
  • French, B. H., Lewis, J. A., Mosley, D. V., Adames, H. Y., Chavez-Dueñas, N. Y., Chen, G. A., & Neville, H. A. (2020). Toward a psychological framework of radical healing in communities of color. The Counseling Psychologist, 48(1), 14–46. https://doi-org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/10.1177/0011000019843506
• One Size Does Not Fit All: Taking Diversity, Culture and Context Seriously
  • Alegria, M., Atkins, M., Farmer, E., Slaton, E., & Stelk, W. (2010). One size does not fit all: taking diversity, culture and context seriously. Administration and policy in mental health, 37(1-2), 48–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-010-0283-2
• The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing is a “must have”. Dr. Anneliese A. Singh offers practical tools to help you navigate daily and past experiences of racism, challenge internalized negative messages and privileges and handle feelings of stress and shame.