POLICY AND PRACTICE

How Does the Health Equity Alliance Impact Policy and Practice?

The ultimate goal of the Health Equity Alliance (HEA) initiative is to achieve long-term health improvements for residents who presently experience a disproportionate burden of disease and disability by examining, and when appropriate, changing current policies and practices.  The HEA approach provides local health departments with the tools to generate actionable policy and practice recommendations, solutions, and strategies to promote health equity among all Connecticut residents.  Specifically:

• The Health Equity Index (Index) generates community-specific data that illustrates which community conditions give rise to which kinds of health inequities.

• HEA’s workforce development component trains the public health workforce to reframe public health practice to address the social determinants of health.

• HEA’s community engagement component enables direct and grassroots advocacy to implement potential recommendations, solutions, and strategies that promote health equity.
   

Has CADH Created and Policy Documents with the Health Equity Index?

Yes. Selected policy documents include:

• Housing and Planning for a Healthy Public: Land Use, Design and Development to Promote Health Equity, a policy brief that makes the case for formalizing planning-public health partnerships at the municipal level in Connecticut and identifies potential policy strategies that such partnerships could advance to improve conditions to promote health and health equity; click here to learn more.

• A Health Impact Assessment of the New Britain-Hartford Busway, which used the Health Equity Index to better understand how the New Britain-Hartford Busway will impact the vulnerable populations among its route, in both positive and negative ways.