Health Equity Tip: Establish Community Engagement Guidelines that Advance Power Sharing
By Megan Gaydos, Ana Tellez, and Raina Wellman
Today we’re revisiting one of our Health Equity Tips to uplift how meaningful community engagement as a strategy to build community power is a big slice of the pie when it comes to health equity work.
Health departments: it’s time to establish community engagement guidelines with an explicit goal of power sharing. This is a key way to operationalize values of equity and racial justice, and it has the potential to transform how decisions are made, by whom, for whom, and with whom — all of which lead to improved health equity outcomes.
Community power building is not only a process to achieving health equity, but is an outcome in and of itself. To get the full download on how HIP views power sharing and power building as a core strategy to advance health equity, read our article, “Shifting and Sharing Power: Public Health’s Charge in Building Community Power”.
Community engagement to advance power-building with those most impacted by health inequities can result in:
- Changes in existing power dynamics with and within the health department
- Better understanding of the barriers and challenges facing the communities
- Creative solutions and opportunities to address the inequities
- Increased clarity on why and how to address the determinants of health inequities
- Greater buy-in and support for health department actions to move more upstream/address root causes
- Deeper and more trusting relationships
- Increased capacity to advance “inside-outside” strategies that leverage health departments’ power and build community power
Where to start:
Ask your colleagues who work most often with communities impacted by inequities:
- How they engage community members, whether the department has any existing community engagement guidelines, and if/how the guidelines are used
Review existing practices or documentation, with an attention towards:
- Where do the department’s practices and internal guidance on community engagement fall on the spectrum of community engagement to ownership? Consider how teams across the department may be engaging in different ways
- To what extent does the department have relationships with community power building organizations (CPBOs)? (Learn about CPBOs in our report, Building Power to Advance Health Equity for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Lead Local project)
Share your findings with your leadership and propose that the health department:
- Identifies opportunities to try something new in a current project or process (e.g. delegates power or defers to community driven decision-making) and practices being adaptive
- Establishes an equity-driven process to develop clear guidance on why and how to engage community members impacted by inequities
- Contract a community organizer to train department staff on community power building and how to use the approach in community engagement work
Keep the following considerations at the front of your mind in your process:
- How can these department efforts facilitate building deep and trusting relationships with community power-building organizations led by directly impacted people, so that there are more consistent feedback loops to advance community health?
- How can community power-building organizations use their power to advocate for stronger public health policies and practice in partnership with health departments?
Looking for inspiration?
Here are just a few of the health departments investing in power building to improve the conditions of people’s lives
- Santa Barbara County Addresses Latinx and Indigena Farmworker Health
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department partnered with community organizers CAUSE and MICOP to protect farmworker health and safety during COVID-19 by establishing the Latinx and Indigenous Migrant COVID-19 Task Force, documenting community conditions impacting COVID-19 risk, issuing a Health Order on H2A housing, and increasing attention to Indigenous workers’ COVID-19 risks and language needs. For more details, see the case study on page 28 of this HIP report. - San Mateo County Builds Youth Engagement
The San Mateo, California, Youth Commission was created to facilitate youth leadership and capacity building and to inform policy. As the Youth Commission funder, San Mateo County Health System leveraged their contracting process to explicitly include equity metrics and requirements in the youth facilitator contract. - Health Improvement Partnership (HIP)-Cuyahoga, Ohio
The Cuyahoga County Board of Health, Ohio, worked with a multi-sectoral consortium to develop an equity-focused Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP). Their CHIP identifies health equity as a guiding principle and tackling structural racism as 1 of 4 strategic priorities. - Cook County Collaborative for Health Equity, Illinois
The Cook County Department of Public Health, Illinois, partnered with community organizers on worker and immigrant rights campaigns through its participation in the Collaborative for Health Equity. The Collaborative makes addressing structural racism and building community power an explicit element of its mission, with community organizers sitting on the Steering Committee and guiding Health Department work.
Other resources
- When working and collaborating with community members “it pays to ask people about what they want. It also pays to pay those people to tell you.” We recommend reading this article, “Cities Are Looking to Get Better Community Engagement By Paying for It” to learn more about compensating community members for their time.
- Our “Power-building Partnerships for Health” project seeks to cultivate collaboration between local health departments and community power-building organizations to advance health equity. Our project page includes lessons from past participants and read articles about how community power-building helps to catalyze, create, and sustain healthy community conditions.
📌 Did you know? Human Impact Partners provides health equity capacity building to public health organizations. Contact us to learn more about our offerings at info[at]humanimpact.org.
Megan Gaydos helps build the capacity of health departments and their staff to advance health and racial equity through training, technical assistance, and development of practice tools. Megan manages HIP’s Power-building Partnerships for Health Initiative, coordinates HIP’s development of new NACCHO MAPP assessment tools, and led the development of HIP’s Health Equity Guide resource website.
Ana Tellez leads HIP’s Capacity Building Program. Ana has over a decade of experience in workforce development for public health organizations. She brings a deep knowledge in the design of blended learning curricula to address complex public health issues. She is passionate about using participatory design, clear communication principles, and the human experience to advance racial justice and belonging.
Raina Wellman is a masters in public health candidate at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health with a certificate in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and a focus on health communications. She received a BFA with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design in Graphic Design with a concentration in Scientific Inquiry. Raina is passionate about addressing social determinants of health, centering health equity, and collaborating with community members to reach lasting solutions.
