Our Work on Health Equity / Our Work In Action
Better, together: examples of our equity work with local partners
The CDC Foundation works to create and support equitable systems through our partnerships and programs. The below projects showcase our work to support vibrant and resilient communities in which everyone can thrive and live their healthiest lives.
Learn more about our work happening across the world to build equitable public health systems.
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The STRETCH Initiative | Building Workforce Capacity | Partnering with Community-Based Organizations | Collaborating Across Sectors | Improving Community-Level Data
The STRETCH Initiative
With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the CDC Foundation, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) partner on the Strategies to Repair Equity and Transform Community Health (STRETCH) initiative. The initiative helps state agencies re-think approaches to addressing health inequities and leverage the influx of federal funding from the pandemic to create long-term systems change leading to inclusive, equitable public health systems. The initiative aims to address root causes of health inequities by strengthening relationships between governmental public health and communities.
Hear more from participants in the STRETCH Initiative on the CDC Foundation's YouTube channel.
Building Workforce Capacity
60-plus CDC Foundation employees working in the public health protection field as health equity project managers, providing wide-ranging support to health departments around the country to help community members live their healthiest lives, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status and more. And these staffers’ personal and career histories are just as varied as the programs to which they are assigned.
Learn more about how a diverse workforce helps health departments aiming for equity.
Partnering with Community-Based Organizations
With support from the Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Fund and in partnership with Human Impact Partners, the CDC Foundation is developing a set of recommendations and roadmap for building and strengthening partnerships between public health agencies and community-based organizations (CBOs). The recommendations aim to cultivate relationships with CBOs to better prepare and respond to future public health emergencies, pursue more equitable solutions in routine practice, effectively promote community health objectives and share power with CBOs to address historical disenfranchisement in decision making.
Learn more about the recommendations.
Collaborating Across Sectors
The Alliance for Million Hearts®–a public-private collaboration between the CDC Foundation, Amgen, Bayer, Association of Black Cardiologists, Black Heart Association, Family Heart Foundation, GirlTrek and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD)–was formed to help fuel the Million Hearts® initiative’s goal of preventing one million heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events. The Alliance produces national, prevention-focused communication campaigns to help more people understand their personal risk for heart disease and stroke, believe in their power to change it and take steps that lower their risks. The Alliance has produced two campaigns: the “Live to the Beat” campaign, addressing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Black adults in the United States, and the “Start Small. Live Big.” campaign, encouraging adults, particularly those over age 55, to take prevention steps for maintaining their heart health.
Learn more about building cross-sector communication campaigns for public health.
Improving Community-Level Data
To improve health outcomes for all, it is essential communities be engaged throughout public health data creation and dissemination. In partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPH) and the CDC Foundation, the National Alliance Against Disparities in Patient Health and five local data equity coalitions are gathering community perspectives on the use of survey data to improve health. By leveraging community insights, this project aims to increase access to local measures of social determinants of health and to increase the reach of surveys by building shared knowledge around data needs and use among communities and data providers.
Learn more about infusing community perspective into public health data.