Equity-Centered Policies
Equity is the vehicle in which we can strive to achieve equality. Equity-centered policy is effective policy.
What Is Equity-
Centered Policies?
Reaching health equity requires investment in community infrastructure, the development of community capacity, and the inclusion of equity throughout the policymaking process.
At The Center for Black Health & Equity, Equity-Centered Policies focuses on equity in existing and new policies by connecting a variety of issues to health outcomes.
Equity is about identifying, reducing, and eventually eliminating social, economic, and environmental conditions that disproportionately face marginalized communities (all of which greatly impact health and life expectancy). Equity is the vehicle by which we can strive to achieve equality for all. Equity-centered policy is effective policy.
Equity-centered policies are laws and policies that are created, implemented, and enforced in consideration of quality evidence and the lived experience of the communities most impacted by the issues that the policies and laws aim to address. It requires genuine engagement, consideration, and guidance of disparately impacted communities throughout the policy/lawmaking process.
It is especially important to consider the intersectionality of groups and the understanding that certain groups represent multiple marginalized identities that experience inequity individually and collectively (e.g., Black, women, disabled; Black women; Black and disabled; disabled women; Black disabled women). Focusing on the impact, consideration, and involvement of the most affected people in policymaking is necessary to identify problems early on, avoid unintended consequences, and produce creative and efficient solutions.
The ECP Unit is supported for grant-specific work by the Office of Minority Health and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The Truth Be Told Toolbox includes resources for community change agents seeking to understand the power and importance of storytelling in educating others about equity-centered policy.
This policy platform addresses deeper causes of health outcomes that may seem “outside of public health,” such as how transportation policy impacts one’s ability to eat fresh foods, combat loneliness, and breathe fresh air.
Center produced resources to assist a variety of policy considerations.
Laws and policies are essential tools for supporting and improving lives, as they can assign access, rights, protections, and liberties. They reflect, reinforce, and shape social norms and community values. In the United States, law and equality have not gone hand in hand. Public policies reflect and address historical bias, deeply embedded anti-Blackness, racism, ableism, misogyny, and other inequity in laws and systems. Racism, for example, is the foundation of the country’s founding laws and systems, legalizing disparate treatment of some people and creating unfair advantage for others.
Creating, amending, or replacing public policy that not only avoids inequitable policy outcomes from the past but also repairs them is key in reconfiguring the systems and rules that intentionally, recklessly, and neglectfully caused disparities, leading to lower quality of life, more negative experiences, poor health outcomes, and shorter lives of certain groups.
Public policies and decisions made at the local, state, and federal levels can and do make a notable difference in peoples’ lives. This includes:
- Changing regulations that allow for more people to access affordable, safe, and healthy housing;
- Requiring insurance companies to expand coverage for certain health care services to previously-ineligible customers;
- Passing a school policy that limits punitive enforcement of certain non-violent offenses;
- Re-zoning an area to protect it from predatory development plans and better ensure community-desired planning;
- Prohibiting the sale of harmful, unsafe products (e.g., menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products) in a city.
