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Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience

INTRODUCTION: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there were numerous stories of health equity work being put “on hold” as public health staff were deployed to the many urgent tasks of responding to the emergency. Losing track of health equity work is not new and relates in part to the need t...

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Autores principales: Haworth-Brockman, Margaret, Betker, Claire, Keynan, Yoav
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10251661/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37304086
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1110300
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author Haworth-Brockman, Margaret
Betker, Claire
Keynan, Yoav
author_facet Haworth-Brockman, Margaret
Betker, Claire
Keynan, Yoav
author_sort Haworth-Brockman, Margaret
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there were numerous stories of health equity work being put “on hold” as public health staff were deployed to the many urgent tasks of responding to the emergency. Losing track of health equity work is not new and relates in part to the need to transfer tacit knowledge to explicit articulation of an organization’s commitment to health equity, by encoding the commitment and making it visible and sustainable in policy documents, protocols and processes. METHODS: We adopted a Theory of Change framework to develop training for public health personnel to articulate where and how health equity is or can be embedded in their emergency preparedness processes and documents. RESULTS: Over four sessions, participants reviewed how well their understanding of disadvantaged populations were represented in emergency preparedness, response and mitigation protocols. Using equity prompts, participants developed a heat map depicting where more work was needed to explicitly involve community partners in a sustained manner. Participants were challenged at times by questions of scope and authority, but it became clear that the explicit health equity prompts facilitated conversations that moved beyond the idea of health equity to something that could be codified and later measured. Over four sessions, participants reviewed how well their understanding of disadvantaged populations were represented in emergency preparedness, response and mitigation protocols. Using equity prompts, participants developed a heat map depicting where more work was needed to explicitly involve community partners in a sustained manner. Participants were challenged at times by questions of scope and authority, but it became clear that the explicit health equity prompts facilitated conversations that moved beyond the idea of health equity to something that could be codified and later measured. DISCUSSION: Using the indicators and prompts enabled the leadership and staff to articulate what they do and do not know about their community partners, including how to sustain their involvement, and where there was need for action. Saying out loud where there is – and is not – sustained commitment to achieving health equity can help public health organizations move from theory to true preparedness and resilience.
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spelling pubmed-102516612023-06-10 Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience Haworth-Brockman, Margaret Betker, Claire Keynan, Yoav Front Public Health Public Health INTRODUCTION: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there were numerous stories of health equity work being put “on hold” as public health staff were deployed to the many urgent tasks of responding to the emergency. Losing track of health equity work is not new and relates in part to the need to transfer tacit knowledge to explicit articulation of an organization’s commitment to health equity, by encoding the commitment and making it visible and sustainable in policy documents, protocols and processes. METHODS: We adopted a Theory of Change framework to develop training for public health personnel to articulate where and how health equity is or can be embedded in their emergency preparedness processes and documents. RESULTS: Over four sessions, participants reviewed how well their understanding of disadvantaged populations were represented in emergency preparedness, response and mitigation protocols. Using equity prompts, participants developed a heat map depicting where more work was needed to explicitly involve community partners in a sustained manner. Participants were challenged at times by questions of scope and authority, but it became clear that the explicit health equity prompts facilitated conversations that moved beyond the idea of health equity to something that could be codified and later measured. Over four sessions, participants reviewed how well their understanding of disadvantaged populations were represented in emergency preparedness, response and mitigation protocols. Using equity prompts, participants developed a heat map depicting where more work was needed to explicitly involve community partners in a sustained manner. Participants were challenged at times by questions of scope and authority, but it became clear that the explicit health equity prompts facilitated conversations that moved beyond the idea of health equity to something that could be codified and later measured. DISCUSSION: Using the indicators and prompts enabled the leadership and staff to articulate what they do and do not know about their community partners, including how to sustain their involvement, and where there was need for action. Saying out loud where there is – and is not – sustained commitment to achieving health equity can help public health organizations move from theory to true preparedness and resilience. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10251661/ /pubmed/37304086 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1110300 Text en Copyright © 2023 Haworth-Brockman, Betker and Keynan. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Haworth-Brockman, Margaret
Betker, Claire
Keynan, Yoav
Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title_full Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title_fullStr Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title_full_unstemmed Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title_short Saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
title_sort saying it out loud: explicit equity prompts for public health organization resilience
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10251661/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37304086
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1110300
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