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CHE: A Year End Review
For December’s ARC newsletter, we want to reflect on some of our work in 2019 and provide our expectations for 2020.
2019 Recap
After a year served as the center’s interim director, T. Gonzales was officially appointed as the Center for Health Equity Director. We’re grateful for his leadership. As we began 2019, T. provided a framework for our work in 3 major buckets:
Inward, Outward and With
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INWARD: This year we made a commitment to do our internal work to transform ourselves to advance health equity.
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OUTWARD: Through deeper partnerships with other public agencies, community residents, and organizations, we can be more strategic and build power that transforms the conditions in which we live, work, learn, and play.
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WITH: Advancing equity takes many of us who are willing to work collaboratively toward a shared vision.
INWARD
In 2019, Center for Health Equity (CHE) staff hosted its first all-staff retreat following the realignment which grew our staff from 4 to ~40. Staff participated in team building activities and formal conversations to begin defining a shared vision for advancing health equity. The retreat provided us an opportunity to be introduced to an understanding of power, consider our daily work and what should be prioritized, and have discussion about the structure we want to build for ourselves. We look forward to deepening our understanding of power and equity in 2020 as we begin the development of our next Health Equity Report.
CHE also helped to coordinate the adoption of a Data Standardization policy which formally included expansive gender identity options into internal forms that residents complete for appointments, surveys, and more. This policy is a critical example of the important work needed to operationalize equity into our daily practices. We’re grateful for the team who coordinated this internally as well as worked with other Louisville Metro agencies to ensure meaningful data collection.
OUTWARD
To truly advance health equity, we must build partnerships to advocate for a shared vision of an equitable community. This year, our growth facilitated the development of significant projects that help us think critically about what is needed for a healthy Louisville. For example, CHE began coordinating work on the four goals of Healthy Louisville 2025, equitable housing, healthy built environment, connecting education to healthcare, and environmental equity. Stay tuned in January 2020 to learn more!
Additionally, CHE closed out the year by partnering with the Louisville Metro Government Office of Equity and Office of Performance Improvement to train all Metro Directors and Assistant Directors in Advancing Racial Equity Part 2. This training further explored the relationship between power and equity, considered the history of race and economics, shared key frameworks for transformational work, and introduced a practical assessment tool for racial equity. We’re excited to continue to partner with Metro agencies in 2020!
With
It is not possible to transform our community without deep, meaningful collaboration with our partners. We’re grateful for the many, many examples we could reflect on that demonstrate the commitment across Jefferson County and the state to design an equitable community. For example, we’re proud of the collaboration that resulted in the publishing of our Pregnant Workers Health Impact Assessment and passed legislation that guarantees the rights of pregnant workers to safe and healthy working conditions for her and her developing child! Our statewide work also expanded by building relationships with other local health departments to advance health equity. Thanks to Lincoln Trail District and Barren River District Health Departments for their partnership! Locally, we also were part of the Complete Streets for Lou coalition which successfully advocated for passage of the strengthened complete streets ordinance to make streets safe for all users at any age or modality. Our Maternal and Child Health team also expanded their partnerships and hosted a Birth Equity Townhall to begin addressing the Black maternal and infant health crisis. We look forward to continuing this work in 2020 to create the community-wide supports necessary for an equitable community.
Our Expectations for 2020 and beyond
The examples highlighted this month are just some of the incredible work CHE was part of in 2019. Our staff worked countless hours to ensure we continue to build a sustainable foundation towards equity. Take a look at LMPHW’s annual report for some of the other great work that happened in 2019. As we move into 2020, we are ready to dive deeper into an understanding of power, build transformative visions across root causes, and build relationships to advocate for structural change. Thank you to everyone who partners with us in this work.
Stay tuned for what we’ve got coming up in 2020:
- Expungement Health Impact Assessment
- Racial Equity Budget Assessment
- Health Equity Report engagement
- And so much more!
Happy New Year!
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