Health Equity

Advancing health equity is now widely accepted as a public health imperative. Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be healthy. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination and addressing their drivers, like power and representation in decision-making. Operationalizing health equity requires that we think both about how decisions are made and the consequences of these decisions, including lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care.

Fellows build their capacity to frame their work using a health equity lens through training that builds understanding of the root causes of inequities, institutional change, reflective practice and collaborative leadership. The health equity curriculum embedded into the two years of fellowship includes both didactic and experiential learning and skill building around the social determinants of health and its causes, historical knowledge and perspectives on the role of policies in shaping health inequities, coalition capacity building and partnership development skills.