State Health and Value Strategies (SHVS), in partnership with Manatt Health, Health Equity Solutions, Georgetown’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR), the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC), Bailit Health, and GMMB, developed this resource page to serve as an accessible “one-stop” source of health equity information for states. This resource is designed to support states seeking to make coverage and essential services available to all of their residents, regardless of where they live, how much money they make, or discrimination they face. SHVS will update this page frequently with new resources as they become available.
Developed in partnership with community leaders, chief equity officers, policymakers, economic development practitioners, research and policy organizations, and philanthropic partners, 10 Priorities for Advancing Racial Equity Through the American Rescue Plan: A Guide for City and County Policymakers suggests municipal strategies for deploying ARP funds equitably, efficiently, and strategically. Additionally, the guide lays out a framework for equitable decision-making around ARP spending and investments with prompts that local leaders can use to not only ask hard questions around racial equity, but also seek to address them.
CORE creates training, tools, and processes for local officials, staff, and the community to intentionally identify and disrupt implicit biases and systemic inequities in policymaking.
A new Health Affairs blog post authored by Dr. Nathan Chomilo, Medical Director for the State of Minnesota’s Medicaid program and a practicing pediatrician and an internal medicine hospitalist with Park Nicollet Health Services/HealthPartners, highlights how racial equity can be built into research and policy and why this is important step as states and policymakers seek to dismantle structure racism in the health care system. Dr. Chomilo notes several examples of how stakeholders can assess research and policy for racial equity at the start. These examples include requiring a racial equity assessment at the start of the development of research proposals aimed at answering policy questions to help ensure investigators have, at the very least, stopped to ask how their work may or may not contribute to structural racism or advance racial justice and improving and standardizing ways to collect race, ethnicity, and language demographic data for not only public payers such as Medicare and Medicaid but all health insurers, social safety-net programs, and education systems.
This infographic explores the history of racial bias and discrimination in health care and during the pandemic, and highlights strategies to address systemic racism and improve health outcomes.
Public health policies have catalyzed major health improvements for people living in the United States. But without enforcement — that is, a means of incentivizing compliance — these policies are less likely to produce their intended effects. Equitable enforcement is a process of ensuring compliance with law and policy that considers and minimizes harms to people affected by health inequities.
By posing a series of questions to consider when drafting, implementing, and enforcing a policy, ChangeLab Solutions’ resource helps policymakers, advocates, and enforcement officials explore (1) the equity implications of traditional public health enforcement tools, and (2) strategies to avoid unintended negative consequences when enforcing violations of the law. Equitable Enforcement to Achieve Health Equity also discusses best practices in design and development of enforcement provisions to help avoid inequitable impacts and promote community health.
An analysis of structural racism within the Medicaid program, and how Medicaid policies have failed to resolve racial health disparities throughout the program’s history.
A report designed to increase consensus around meaning of health equity
On Wednesday, July 22, State Health and Value Strategies hosted part II of the Preparing for OEP 2021 webinar series that provided a deep dive into effective strategies to consider as states design their outreach and education campaigns for OEP 2021 in a shifting health care environment. Presenters from GMMB explored how the impacts of COVID-19 should inform the marketplace’s tactical campaign approaches for virtual outreach and partnership engagement, digital and social platform usage, and paid advertising and earned media. Participants also heard insights from several state officials from state-based marketplaces along the way. Topics for discussion included coordinating with state agencies, engaging micro-influencers, leveraging social media live streams, hosting virtual enrollment events, developing advertising buys, and considering new earned media hooks. This webinar included a question and answer session during which webinar participants can pose their questions to the experts on the line.
Governor Mike DeWine formed the COVID-19 Minority Health Strike Force on April 20, 2020, in response to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minorities in Ohio. The strike force contracted with the Health Policy Institute of Ohio (HPIO) to develop this “COVID-19 Ohio Minority Health Strike Force Blueprint.”
This brief describes health equity principles for states as they design and implement their responses.
This report outlines three guiding principles for state policymakers in their equity efforts.
The state of Virginia has formed a Health Equity Work Group that is intentionally embedded into the state’s Uniform Command center addressing COVID-19. Both the Work Group and the Taskforce meet on a regular basis and work to apply a health equity lens to each phase of the state’s response, ranging from preparedness to mitigation to recovery.
Early evidence suggests there are health disparities based on race, gender, and geography in both the contraction of COVID-19 and deaths related to the virus. People of color and those who live in urban centers are faring worse from this pandemic. These higher rates of illness and death are rooted in longstanding, structural inequities in our country. While these inequities cannot be fixed overnight, states can begin to foster a more equitable and just COVID-19 response, relief, and recovery effort by employing a few key guidelines. This expert perspective poses a series of questions states can use to inform immediate actions to strengthen their initial responses and lay the foundation for broader reforms to advance health equity.
A follow-up story on a webinar, Pursuing Data on COVID-19: The Health Inequity Multiplier
The second edition of the Health Equity Guide for Public Health Practitioners and Partners is intended to support practitioners and partners engagement in multifaceted approaches to addressing health equity.
The first webinar in the SHVS Health Equity Through Managed Care Series series reviewed the foundational principles of health equity, barriers to its realization and the impact of health disparities.
The third webinar in the SHVS Health Equity Through Managed Care Webinar Series identified evidence-based interventions that states can use to address disparities in their Medicaid managed care programs.
A report which gives some practical suggestions for public health departments wanting to become equity focused