Race & Health Equity Resource Guide

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    What is Health Equity?

    This resource guide was initiated by the PHIWM Board's Race & Health Equity Committee and augmented by regional partners and collaborations. Through discussions, activities, and the development of a resource library, the committee and regional partners work to support professional development and personal growth by fostering a learning community. These resources were gathered from various platforms that lend differing perspectives and scholarly insights.


    We hope organizations and stakeholders will utilize this guide to strengthen their understanding of race and health equity, serve as a guide for difficult conversations, and utilize this tool as a form of education to help aid and support the development of equitable communities.


    Help us keep this tool up to date! Given that conversations around race and equity will continue to evolve as well as the resources used to support growth and learning, the committee seeks your comments, additions, or upgrades. Contact us with your suggestions, comments, and updates.

    A Race and Health Equity Blog

    Putting Resources into Practice

    We are all on the same journey

    April 16, 2025
    Wanda Givens is a member of the leadership team for the Women of Color Health Equity Collective (WOCHEC). WOCHEC offers training and consulting services to address issues of white supremacy, health inequity, and more. As part of her work at WOCHEC, Wanda facilitates a training about cultural humility. "What I love most about facilitating Cultural Humility is not what people learn about each other, but what they learn about themselves. The more we know about how we get to be who we are, the more we can understand and relate to someone else’s journey. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing someone come to the realization that they are more like others in the room than they are different. Our paths may take different roads, but essentially, we are all on the same journey." Did you know the Race and Health Equity Resource Guide includes a listing of organizations like WOCHEC who can help guide your organization on its anti-racism journey and more!

    Dignity

    March 19, 2025
    Dignity Freedom Fighter

    Understanding How We Got Here

    January 23, 2025
    Jaymie R. Zapata is a Senior Planner - Public Health with the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. "Though the challenges of achieving racial equity may seem daunting, the past has a lot to teach us about how the systems that define our daily lives came to be. The first step to dismantling systems is to understand them. As a systems-level public health planner, I think it is vital to always be reading and educating myself about the decisions my predecessors made in public health for good or ill, so I can center what is just and challenge what is not. A book that was essential to my understanding of race and Black health in the United States was The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander , without which I do not think I would have been able to understand the continuation of Jim Crow laws into the present day nor their deep impact. At my agency we have established a racial equity reading library in our break room, stocked with many books from the Race and Health Equity Resource Guide . We hope people will take a minute over coffee to unplug, pick up a book, and gain some new insights while they are at it. There’s never a bad moment to learn something new!"

    We can build new bridges to health

    November 13, 2024
    Keleigh Waldner is the Senior Manager of Communications and Research at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. She writes, "When someone asks me how to explain structural racism or social determinants of health, I often direct them to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 'Bridge to Health' model . The bridge metaphor illustrates structural racism in an accessible way. One bridge is built to safely carry people to their destination of good health, while the other is intentionally constructed with barriers. I appreciate this metaphor because it highlights the human role in creating systems and practices that value some lives more than others. This isn’t a natural occurrence; it’s the result of intentional decisions over time. Given the rise in rhetoric suggesting that our genes are responsible for our intelligence or criminality, it feels important to emphasize this point. Inequality isn’t genetic, rather, it is deeply steeped into our policies, systems, and environments. It is easy to become immobilized by injustice. At times it all feels like too much. The 'Bridge to Health' model offers some hope that we have the agency to replace these old bridges with new ones that enable everyone to thrive."