NEW PROJECT

CARE: Change Agents for Racial Equity

Health Equity Strategies and Solutions has been selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for a 12-month contract to lead a national assessment of how to better support academic health professionals who are working to address structural racism and advance health equity in their institutions and communities. The contract is part of RWJF’s Leadership for Better Health portfolio, which invests in people and organizations committed to using their power and resources to advance health equity, antiracism, and long-term structural change.  

To implement this contract, we are collaborating with Lupe Alonzo-Diaz (Physicians for a Healthy California), Lois Angelo (NYU School of Global Public Health), Zinzi Bailey, ScD (Health Equity Research Solutions), Michelle Samplin-Salgado (Red Sofa Designs), Kamina Smith (Kyndle Consulting), and Sherrie Wallington, PhD (George Washington University).  Our transdisciplinary approach to this project treats structural racism in academic health settings as a system-level phenomenon requiring aligned strategies across individual, interpersonal, and structural levels. We plan to conduct focus groups with health sciences students and semi-structured interviews with academic health professionals such as professors, deans, directors of leadership development programs, and directors of research centers focused on structural racism.  Our results will be disseminated in a final report, a national webinar, and academic papers.  Stay tuned for updates on this project.