ASTHO is a national capacity-building and technical-assistance provider that supports state and island initiatives that eliminate health disparities. This includes programs that help populations at high-risk of poor health outcomes and who have been historically underserved, including rural, racial, and ethnic minoritized communities. We inform methods to help agencies adopt cross-sector and cross-agency coordination to build a culture of health equity at the programmatic and organizational level.
Where much of public health programming is categorical, our approach starts with the assumption that health inequities are not natural or inevitable and therefore requires a shift to focus on systemic causes that influence our systems.
ASTHO’s technical support prioritizes transformation strategies to improve public health infrastructure, race and ethnicity data collection, and responses to events that exacerbate disparities. ASTHO provides assistance engaging community health workers and community-based groups, and establishing a culture of health equity through policies, practices, and quality improvement measures.
Featured
Introduction to Multi-Sector Intersections and Collaborations to Advance Health Equity (PDF)
This document highlights equity-focused partnerships with public health and other governmental sectors.
The Health Equity Divide: Chronic Disease and COVID-19
This episode of Public Health Review features chronic disease and health equity experts discussing the impact of COVID-19 on people with chronic disease.
Latest Operationalizing Equity Resources
Best Practices for Sustained Community Engagement Learned from the STRETCH 2.0 Midpoint
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Leveraging Healthy People 2030 to Build Non-Traditional Multisector Partnerships
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Healing Relationships Authentically to Sustain a Healthy Community: A STRETCH National Convening
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STRETCH-ing for Health: Operationalizing Health Equity in Public Health Agencies
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How the Civil Rights March on Washington Embodied Key Public Health Tenets
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Collaborations
ASTHO collaborates with a diverse group of stakeholders ranging from philanthropy, nonprofit, academia, and health care, including:
- CDC’s Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support
- CDC Foundation
- CDC Office of Minority Health and Health Equity
- Center of Health Care Strategies
- Human Impact Partners
- Michigan Public Health Institute
- National Association of Community Health Workers
- National Association of County and City Health Officials
- National Association of State Offices of Minority Health
- National Network of Public Health Institutes
- National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Strategies to Repair Equity and Transform Community Health (STRETCH)
ASTHO leads a learning community comprised of ten state jurisdictions and their cross-agency and community-based organization partners to foster information sharing and peer learning about:
- Designing meaningful, lasting systems change to create inclusive, equitable public health systems.
- Embedding equity into priorities, programs, policies, and practices.
- Leveraging new funding through financing strategies to drive impact.
ASTHO, the CDC Foundation, and the Michigan Public Health Institute selected state health agencies to participate in the STRETCH learning community, which engages intermediary organizations including health providers, philanthropy, academia and others, to support governmental state public health agencies to achieve health equity. The STRETCH Initiative aims to be an extension of their team, helping them build and expand equitable health systems.
National Initiative to Address COVID-19 Health Disparities Among Populations at High-Risk and Underserved, Including Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations and Rural Communities
In partnership with CDC, NACCHO and NNPHI, ASTHO is a member of National Technical Assistance Provider Network designated to support OT21-2103 grantees. The purpose of the network is to support grantees to address COVID-19-related health disparities and advance health equity by expanding state, local, island, United States territorial, and Freely Associated State health department capacity and services. OT21-2103 grantees may submit technical assistance requests to their project officer or work with their agency points of contact to input requests into the CDC TA Portal.