Power-building Partnerships for Health cultivates powerful collaborations between local health departments and community power-building organizations to advance health equity.

Social movements and public health belong together! Power-building Partnerships for Health (PPH) provides support and resources to build community power and take strategic actions. PPH cohorts are made up of partnership pairs of local health departments and community power-building organizations (CPBOs), also known as grassroots organizing groups, movement-building organizations, community organizing or base-building groups.

The goals of PPH are to: 

  • Deepen relationships, trust and support structures for strong collaborations between community power-building organizations and health departments
  • Develop a shared understanding of health equity, community power-building, and inside/outside strategies
  • Support health departments to leverage their power and take action to contribute to community power-building priorities
  • Support community power-building organizations to use their power to advance stronger public health policies and practices
  • Enhance our collective ability to advance inside/outside strategies for health equity and racial justice

2023 PPH Cohort

We are excited to announce the Power-building Partnerships for Health (PPH) 2023 cohort! After receiving 50 applications and interviewing 10 finalists, we have selected four pairs of community power-building organizations and local health departments:

Chelsea, MA: Housing Justice

La Colaborativa / Chelsea Collaborative and the City of Chelsea Department of Public Health

La Colaborativa empowers Latinx immigrants to enhance the social and economic health of the community and its people, and to hold institutional decision-makers accountable to the community. La Colaborativa and the City of Chelsea will work with Latinx immigrant families in the Environmental Justice community of Chelsea to address the health impacts of poor housing conditions. They will use the “Up to Code Toolkit” to address housing code violations, support tenants in advocating for their rights, prevent evictions, and hold landlords and city officials accountable.

Kansas City / Wyandotte County, KS: Environmental Justice

CleanAirNow and the Unified Government Health Department

CleanAirNow (CAN) is a climate and environmental justice organization whose mission is to bring systemic change in industry and government policies and practices to protect health and to promote justice. They are building community power through environmental health education, equitable community based research projects, and people-driven solutions in public policy to improve health. CAN and the Unified Government (Kansas City and Wyandotte County) Health Department will deepen their partnership and create pathways for community leadership in addressing environmental health hazards in the Argentine and Armourdale neighborhoods.

New Orleans, LA: Workers’ Bill of Rights – Economic Equity

Step Up Louisiana and the New Orleans Health Department

Step Up Louisiana (Step Up) builds power to win education and economic justice for all through a multiracial and multigenerational membership that engages in campaigns that directly affect their lives. New Orleans Health Department (NOHD) is a PHAB-accredited health department with an established mission “to promote, protect, and improve the health of all in our community through equitable policies, programs, and partnerships.” Step Up and NOHD co-created the New Orleans Workers’ Bill of Rights initiative with the goals of improving economic security and addressing one of the major root causes of public health problems — economic inequity. Through PPH, Step Up and NOHD will work to establish the local Workers’ Bill of Rights as a base set of standards for workers in New Orleans.

Pasadena, CA: Building Solidarity, Not Charity, Toward Economic and Food Security

National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) – Mano a Mano and the Pasadena Public Health Department

The National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) improves the lives of day laborers, migrants and low-wage workers. NDLON builds leadership and power among those facing injustice so they can challenge inequality and expand labor, civil and political rights for all. The Pasadena Job Center’s Mano a Mano (Hand in Hand) Pantry is NDLON’s food distribution partnership to respond to the COVID-19 public health and unemployment crises while providing culturally relevant and nutritious food. The Pasadena Public Health Department, Nutrition & Physical Activity Program, has partnered with NDLON’s Mano a Mano Pantry to provide community health resources and information on the roles of community health workers. The Pasadena Public Health Department will continue to support NDLON in their efforts to improve health outcomes and increase food access for workers and their families.

Webinar Series: Power-building for Health Departments

In June and July 2022, HIP hosted  a 2-part webinar workshop series on power-building, geared toward health department leaders, staff, and partners. The sessions dive into power imbalances as a root cause of health inequities, how to build deep alliances with community power-building organizations (CPBOs) to shift power, and ways health departments can leverage and redistribute their power to advance equity.

Part 1: Power 101

Part 2: Tools for Analyzing & Redistributing Power

Contact us to learn more about PPH

Are you a local health department interested in trainings or technical assistance on community power-building or how to collaborate with community organizers? A community power-building organization interested in connecting or collaborating with a local health department?

Contact us at PPH@humanimpact.org