Strategies to Repair Equity and Transform Community Health (STRETCH) Initiative
We all want to live in a community where everyone has the opportunity to reach their best health and wellbeing, no matter their race, ethnicity or class. Communities, including state health agencies and community-based organizations, have been working toward everyone having opportunities to access health care, clean air, parks, childcare, transportation options and the many other aspects of our lives that impact our overall health. The Strategies to Repair Equity and Transform Community Health (STRETCH) Initiative works to strengthen the foundational relationships imperative to ensuring all members of the community can thrive and improve the structures and processes needed to consistently move this work forward.
Join the STRETCH Network
STRETCH Network of Health Equity Practitioners Online Community
The online community creates connections among those working in cultivating a culture of equity and creating systems-level change. Members can share best practices, tools and methods for operationalizing equity, common pain points while navigating this often-challenging work and foster peer-to-peer connections with health equity practitioners.
Participants who register for a STRETCH National Convening will be automatically added to the community. Anyone interested is free to join at any time! Participants will need to create a my.astho account if they do not already have one.
The STRETCH Framework
The STRETCH initiative champions a systems change approach by analyzing the underlying policies, practices, resource allocations, power dynamics, relationships and mental models—our beliefs or assumptions that influence our perceptions—that have created barriers to everyone having the opportunity to live their healthiest life. The initiative synthesized different perspectives into an action-oriented framework that emphasizes addressing root causes to achieve health equity.
The STRETCH Framework is a tool for public health practitioners—including state public health agencies, local health departments and community-based organizations—to understand the shifts needed to achieve true systems change.
STRETCH Partners
The STRETCH initiative, a partnership between the CDC Foundation, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, offers capacity-building activities to build and strengthen trust and accountability among state public health agencies and community organizations, develop approaches to power sharing, identify community priorities and build a shared set of actions to achieve common goals of advancing opportunities for all community members to live their healthiest lives.
STRETCH Initiative Updates
- STRETCH-ing for Health: Operationalizing Health Equity in Public Health Agencies - an interview with two representatives from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment
- Nothing For Us Without Us: How Connecticut is Rethinking Their Funding Systems
- Centering the Community’s Voice in State-Led Health Equity Initiatives
- Empowering Connection through STRETCH
- Strengthening Community Relationships as the Foundation for Change
- Repairing Equity and Transforming Community Health
- Building a Culture of Health Equity: New Initiative Launches with 10 State Health Agencies
- Building Systems Change for Equitable Public Health Systems
ASTHO has created STRETCH online learning modules to provide you with tangible tools and examples of how to apply the STRETCH framework to address the root causes of inequities and achieve lasting change. You can find these learning opportunities on ASTHO's e-Learning Center page. You will need to log into your ASTHO account; then select the STRETCH learning modules from the courses listed on the left side of the page.
STRETCH 2.0
Building upon the experiences in the first round of the STRETCH initiative, STRETCH 2.0 aims to promote necessary skills, core competencies, power sharing and authentic relationships among state team members and community partners to advance and sustain health equity through systems change.
Governmental public health is currently receiving an influx of funding to strengthen the public health workforce and infrastructure. STRETCH is helping to ensure that the community is at the forefront of these decisions and that state public health agencies are investing in their community partnerships.
STRETCH 2.0 will have three levels of engagement:
- National: The national tier provides technical assistance resources pertinent to challenges and needs across public health and is open for all public health practitioners to participate, regardless of their participation in STRETCH
- Cohort: A peer learning network for the seven participating teams accepted through the RFA.
- Collaborative: The individual teams accepted through the RFA.
STRETCH 2.0 Participants
- Out Boulder County and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
- Hawai‘i Maternal and Infant Health Collaborative, Early Childhood Action Strategy and Hawaii State Department of Health
- Whole Heart Grief & Loss Resource Center, Equity and Inclusion Office of the Fredrick County Health Department and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Maryland Department of Health.
- Nevada Minority Health & Equity Coalition, Nevada Office of Minority Health and Equity and Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health
- One Neighborhood Builders, Family Service of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Department of Health and Executive Office of Health and Human Services
- Able South Carolina and South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
- NEK Prosper!, Northern Counties Health Care, Journey to Recovery Community Center, Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, Northeast Kingdom Human Services, Powered Magazine, Northwestern Medical Center and Vermont Department of Health
STRETCH 1.0
Who Participated in STRETCH 1.0?
- Connecticut State Department of Public Health and the Office of Health Strategy
- Kansas Department of Health and Environment
- Maryland Department of Health
- Minnesota State Department of Health
- Mississippi State Department of Health
- Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health
- Tennessee Department of Health
- Vermont Department of Health
- Virginia Office of Health Equity
- Wisconsin Department of Health Services
STRETCH 1.0 Teams
The participating state public health agencies in STRETCH 1.0 created teams composed of cross-sector members bringing together key players such as their health equity officer, finance team members, local and county health departments health director or deputy, intermediaries and community members.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
- Michigan Public Health Institute
- United States of America