Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Series [changelabsolutions]

What are the elements of a healthy and equitable community?
How do we create conditions in which all children and families can thrive?

ChangeLab Solutions is excited to announce the Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Series—a virtual space for collaborative exploration of the topic of health equity. In this multimedia training series, we examine how law and policy coupled with community power can catalyze new opportunities for everyone to achieve their full health potential. Roughly each month from April to October, we’ll release a trio of offerings—a blog post, a webinar, and a continued conversation—highlighting one aspect of policy that has important implications for children and families, communities, and health equity. Topics include food systems, schools, the built environment, preemption, and more (see schedule).

Each training will highlight and open conversations about

• Consequences of laws and policies that don’t take health equity into account—and how we can respond
• On-the-ground stories and innovations from community health leaders
• Technical tools and resources to support participants’ work in changemaking for health
• Thought partnership on strategic approaches, implementation, and enforcement

This week, we are launching our first episode, Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Through Equitable Laws and Policies, where we explore health equity as both a principle and a practice.

• Read our blog post about 10 types of local laws that may be doing more harm than good, and explore resources that will help you learn more and take action.
• Join us on April 24 for a webinar where we’ll connect the dots between health equity and law and policy. JayVon Muhammad, CEO of Marin City Health and Wellness Center, will offer insights on institutional and community-level health inequity and disparities.
• We’ll follow up on April 26 with a continued conversation session, where we’ll convene health equity experts from diverse backgrounds to engage in thoughtful conversation and answer your questions on the blog and the webinar. Panelists will include Lili Farhang, co-director of Human Impact Partners, and Sarah de Guia, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, among others.

This episode is only the start of the conversation. To learn more about other elements of a healthy, equitable community, check out the rest of the episodes in our series and follow us on Medium. Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Series