Assessing Our Nation’s Health Equity Efforts Leadership and Social Justice: the Health Administrator’s Role Please remove shadow effects on all slides. Change title to be consistent with the abstract (I don’t have the abstract in front of me APHA Annual Meeting Gail Brandt, MPH, Ed D November, 2010 Health Equity Council

Presenter Disclosures Presenter: Gail Brandt No Relationship to Disclose

Welcome “To advance the capacity of states and territories to prevent and control chronic diseases…” CDC funded project Health Equity Council

You will learn Methods used to assess health equity skills needed by public health professionals Assessment results of importance to public health leaders Recommendations to use the results for staff education & training

Objectives of Assessment Pilot a skills assessment Identify areas of low proficiency Recommend training areas based on pilot Use the same objectives as appears in the abstract.

The Challenge: Determine skills needed by public health professionals to impact health equity and the social determinants of health Rework to read “Identify skills needed by PH professionals to achieve health equity”. (Avoid using all caps as it is hard to read.)

Methodology Examine competencies relevant to health equity Conduct key informant interviews Design assessment instrument (30 statements in 6 categories) Identify pilot sites for testing Focus groups for survey tool feedback Analyze results for areas of training need Revise survey tool based on feedback In your notes – tell the audience what the initials mean

Pilot Sites: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington & Wyoming… Puerto Rico and NASOMH also participated as pilot sites

Results Those with less experience rated lower proficiency: Communication about health equity & SDOH How to apply knowledge of cultural competency to practice Adapting public health programs to population differences Using data to identify health disparities Engaging communities to work on SDOH

Results All participants rated low proficiency for: Using CBPR Developing community leaders Advocating for community investments Promoting promising practices Identifying policies & systems of institutional racism and institutional discrimination Developing policies to affect SDOH and converting policies into programs

Next Steps Report – review elements with the CDC Disseminate report widely Determine if full assessment is needed Develop action steps to identify/develop training opportunities for public health staff using a three tiered approach: Tier 1. Less experienced Tier 2. Advanced Tier 3. Train-the-trainer

The Lessons Learned Staff members are VERY interested in acting on results Be clear about purpose of assessment Use “Plain Talk” Establish a common language Don’t make assumptions that people understand the terms Know when something is "good enough”

The end Questions? Comments? More information? How can we work together? Gail Brandt, HEC Consultant: brandtconsulting@hotmail.com Louise Square, HEC Chair: lxs08@health.state.ny.us Kati Moseley, SDOH Workgroup Lead: kati.moseley@state.or.us Change red as too hard to read. Put Gail’s name last and include NACDD logo Health Equity Council