Conducting Equity Assessments

This brief examines four Cross-Sector Innovation Initiative grantees that conducted equity assessments and/or used tools to assess how their collaborative is functioning.

Advancing health equity is at the heart of the Cross-Sector Innovation Initiative and its ten grantees are undertaking various initiatives to align public health, health care, social services, and community organization efforts to improve population health outcomes by advancing health equity.

This blog is based on the experiences of three grantees that have conducted equity self-assessments: Cuyahoga County through Case Western Reserve University and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (OH), the Chatham County Public Health Department (NC), and the Health Improvement Collaborative of Southeastern Connecticut through Ledge Light Health District (CT). Additionally, the Spokane Collaborative through Better Health Together (WA) along with Cuyahoga County shared their experiences using tools to assess how their collaborative is functioning or conducted a social network analysis to understand connectivity. These assessments bolster equity efforts by assessing effectiveness of the collaborative.