How to Use This Tool

Who Should Use the Tool?

This tool is best completed by a small team of four to six staff with access to basic data about the demographics served by the organization and with knowledge about the scope of the organization’s health-related services, policies, and practices.

What’s Involved in Completing the Tool?

This tool features seven sections covering key components of health equity. Each section includes a combination of closed-ended questions (yes/no, sometimes/never, etc.), as well as open-ended questions.
When considering questions that relate to work in progress, answer as if that work has been completed ONLY if there has been a public commitment, there is a clear deadline and adequate funding, and you expect the work to be completed within the year ahead.

Process for Completing the Tool

Identify the staff best prepared to complete each section. At least one member of the team should have some experience engaging in health equity analysis.
Set a deadline for completing and sharing each section.
Plan a meeting to discuss the findings.
Distribute any unanswered questions to staff who have the knowledge or resources to address them; note that some questions will require access to data and/or analysis.
Reconvene to finalize and discuss next steps, including dissemination of the findings.

How Long Will it Take to Complete the Tool?

Based on pilot testing of the tool, we recommend budgeting a total of eight hours for completion. While this is only an estimate, and you may work through the tool at a different pace, each section typically takes approximately one hour to complete.

Once the Tool is Completed:

You will be provided with a tally based on your responses to the questions. The numerical result alone is not the end goal of this process, and is not intended to be a score, grade, or ranking.
Armed with your numerical results and additional context from your open-ended answers, you can use this tool to identify key strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities for centering equity.
Plan to whom and how results will be communicated within the organization and to partner organizations and the population served.

Privacy Policy

Thank you for your interest in the Health Equity Impact Tool. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, and safeguard your personal information.

Information Collection and Data Protection:

We collect your name and email address when you interact with the Tool. Upon completion of the Health Equity Impact Tool, the user will be presented with the choice of having their results emailed from a secure address to the email address provided when signing up to use the Tool. If you prefer to not receive the results via email, you will have an option to download a summary of the results.

Cookies:

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. You can control cookies through your browser settings.

Data Sharing:

We do not sell, trade, or share your personal information with third parties, except if required by law.

Your Rights:

You can access, update, or delete your personal information by contacting us. You can also unsubscribe from our communications.

Policy Changes:

We may update this policy periodically. The revised policy will be effective upon posting.

By using the Tool, you consent to this Privacy Policy.

For questions or concerns, please fill out our contact us form.

Thank you.

Acknowledgements

Information About the Authors

Definitions of Key Terms

These definitions are included to ensure a common understanding of the language used throughout this tool, recognizing that some health agencies/departments may have alternate definitions they refer to or utilize. For the purposes of this tool:

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their optimal health regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, geography, or any other social barrier/factor. Advancing health equity means dismantling the systemic racism that underlies differences in the opportunity to be healthy, including addressing social and economic barriers to positive health outcomes. Since we have never had a truly equitable healthcare system, progress toward the goal of health equity is often benchmarked by measuring reductions in health disparities.

Structural racism refers to the historical and current realities of racism across institutions and socioeconomic conditions that results in systems and structures that create differential access to power and opportunity for different racial groups. This includes laws, inherited advantages and disadvantages (e.g., intergenerational transfers of wealth, epigenetic implications of trauma), and standards and norms rooted in racism.

Health disparities are avoidable differences in health outcomes experienced by people with one characteristic (race, gender, sexual orientation) as compared to the socially dominant group (e.g., White, cisgender, heterosexual male, etc.). Measuring disparities can help benchmark progress towards equity.

Health inequities are differences that are unfair and unjust without comparison to another group (e.g., inequitable access to oral health services means there is an unjust lack of oral health services for the population being discussed; a disparity in access to oral health services means that one group has less access than another).

Focusing on disparities can lead to the assumption that one group's behavior, intelligence, or genetics are the cause of any differences. An equity frame connects the dots between disparate outcomes and the disparities in power and privilege in which they are rooted.

The definitions of the key terms listed above are provided in the Health Equity Language Guide for State Officials. For additional resources on writing and talking about health equity, please see the Guide.

Overview of the Tool

PART 1: Commitment to Equity

Stated Commitment to Equity
Commitment of Leadership to Equity
Equity Goals

PART 2: Infrastructure

Designated Equity Monitor
Institutional Structures and Processes
Hiring and Contracting

PART 3: Data

Availability and Quality
Demographics

PART 4: Community Engagement and Partnerships

Frequency and Timing
Rules of Engagement
Representativeness and Inclusion
Community Partnerships

PART 5: Transparency

Reporting
Public Comment
Access to Information

PART 6: Addressing Social and Economic Risk

Intergovernmental Collaboration
Centering Barriers to Health

PART 7: Structural Racism

How to Use the Results

Identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges

Following completion of the tool you will receive a tally based on your responses to the questions. Use the tally and the notes made in each section to complete the Identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges Worksheet.
The worksheet is meant to be completed in a conversation among staff who participated in filling out the tool. As the team completes the worksheet, consider the overlap between and among sections of the tool. Consider also the overlap between programs and services.
Sections for which the tally score was relatively high may offer promising opportunities.

Goals

Use the Goals worksheet to identify a set of goals based on both the tally and the discussion of strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and challenges. Future work should include developing a set of measurable and timebound objectives for reaching each goal. Goals are principles for strategic change and most manageable if limited to five to seven in total. The information recorded in the worksheet is meant to guide next steps, but some, like the list of stakeholders, may change as objectives clarify the work needed.
The tally is meant to elevate and inform the development of equity goals and support strategic planning efforts across the organization. The following scenarios offer ideas of how to prioritize action based on the results of the various parts of this tool:
- A holistic approach: follow the existing sequence of the tool to elevate priorities at different levels of the organization.
- An intentional focus on short-term gains: focus on sections where you may have the most room or opportunity for progress or have a high degree of influence, but the tally is low.
- An intentional focus on long-term gains and systemic change: follow the tool in reverse sequential order (e.g. start with Part 7).

Additional Resources

Health Equity Impact Tool

Why Use This Tool?

Information Collection and Data Protection:

Cookies:

Data Sharing:

Your Rights:

Policy Changes:

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

About State Health and Value Strategies—Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs

PART 1: Commitment to Equity

PART 2: Infrastructure

PART 3: Data

PART 4: Community Engagement and Partnerships

PART 5: Transparency

PART 6: Addressing Social and Economic Risk

PART 7: Structural Racism

Identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges

Goals

Health Equity Policy Tool

State Health and Value Strategies Health Equity Resources

How to Use the Results of the Tool

Identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges

Goals

Before you begin the Health Equity Impact Tool, please share your name and email address below. You will be sent a unique access code via email so you can save your progress and return at a later time if need be.