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Brief

Equity from a Cross-Sector Alignment Perspective: Findings from a Literature Review

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This brief highlights findings from a literature review which identifies common barriers to equity and solutions for overcoming those barriers at the individual, organization, and systems level.

The literature on health-oriented, cross-sector collaborations identifies a number of barriers to increasing procedural equity and reducing health disparities. However, it also identifies many strategies for overcoming those barriers. These strategies can be implemented at the individual, organization, and systems level. As organizations transition from small-scale collaboratives toward systems wide alignment, these strategies may help participants reduce or eliminate persistent health disparities.

The Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) is working with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to test and further develop the Theory of Change, as part of Aligning Systems for Health. A core element of the work at GHPC is to synthesize the existing literature on cross-sector collaboration and draw out key learnings that will help develop the Theory of Change and ultimately help practitioners align across sectors.

Publication

A Theory of Change for Aligning Health Care, Public Health, and Social Services in the Time of COVID-19

This article, published by Georgia Health Policy Center researchers in the American Journal of Public Health, highlights how the core components of cross-sector alignment along with the principles of community voice and health equity can be used to design interactions among health care, public health, and social services that better meet the goals and needs of the people and communities they serve in a way that is built to last.

Publication

Community Workers Lend Human Connection To COVID-19 Response

This article highlights how systems are investing in workers who come from the communities they serve to meet patient needs that extend well beyond clinic walls.

Brief

Cross-Sector Alignment and the Response to COVID-19: How Alignment Can Aid the COVID-19 Response

This brief examines emerging anecdotal evidence that shows communities with the core components of cross-sector alignment (shared purpose, data, financing, and governance) already in place may be able to quickly apply this way of thinking and working to rapidly arising threats, like COVID-19.