A Health Equity Guide for Health Care Transformation and Accountability

In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide movement for Black lives and against police violence have elevated discussions of how to advance equity in health care. Jeremy Cantor and Tracey Kirui partnered with HealthBegins, Health Leads, Human Impact Partners, and Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) at the University of California, San Francisco to develop guidance for health care leaders and advocates on health equity strategies. While there are many resources that discuss health equity and recommend strategic actions, the authors felt that there is a clear need for a process and framework that centers comprehensiveness, advancing accountability, and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. 

The resulting guide, “Bringing Light and Heat: A Health Equity Guide for Healthcare Transformation and Accountability”, was developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal of the guide is to drive radical transformation to achieve equity at the patient, organization, community, and societal levels.

The guide is intended as a resource to bolster a long-term commitment to health equity through a set of clear process steps: commitment, building capacity, assessing and strategizing, changing practice and policy, and learning. This process is not meant to be linear, but rather iterative with ongoing learning and revision. The guide outlines the components of institutional accountability and provides sample practices that embody strategic goals that health care institutions could pursue. 

Watch a recording of the webinar hosted by the partner organizations to launch the guide; over 450 individuals participated.