Power-building Partnerships for Health cultivates powerful collaborations between local health departments and community power-building organizations to advance health equity.
We launched the Power-building Partnerships for Health (PPH) initiative with support from The California Endowment and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted this year in partnership with the Public Health Alliance of Southern California (the Alliance) and the Right to the City Alliance (RTTC).
The initiative’s goals are to:
- Develop new deep and trusting community power-building organizations and health department relationships
- Support local health departments taking action and leveraging their power to advance a local housing justice campaign
- Support community power-building organizations to use their power to advance stronger public health policies and practice in partnership with health departments
- Develop a shared understanding of health equity and housing justice frameworks, transformative organizing, and community power-building strategies
- Build community power and influence to impact health department practice and housing policies
Participants from Riverside University Health System — Public Health, Starting Over Inc., and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California presenting a visual representation of their shared learnings after a year of Power-building Partnerships for Health.
In its first iteration, PPH was California-focused
HIP initially launched PPH in 2018-2019 as a pilot project in partnership with the Alliance and the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) in five counties in California. As noted in our summary evaluation, participating county health departments and community-led organizations developed a deeper understanding of each other’s field, theory of change, and power, increased and improved community engagement, collaboration, relationship building, and trust.
In 2020, HIP and the Alliance pivoted to support Santa Barbara County Public Health Department and their community partners CAUSE and MICOP’s work to protect farmworker health and safety during COVID-19. This partnership helped lead to the development of Latinx and Indigenous Migrant COVID-19 Task Force, documenting community conditions impacting COVID-19 risk, a Health Order on H2A housing to require COVID-19 control measures in temporary agricultural worker (H2A) housing and homeless shelters, and increased attention to Indigenous workers’ COVID-19 risks and language needs in COVID-19 communications and outreach.
Our 2021 cohort has four sites
The 2021 PPH cohort includes 4 sites: Sacramento and Long Beach (California), Saint Louis (MO) and Tri-County/Metro Denver (CO). Site partnerships pair community power-building organizations that focus on housing issues (e.g., evictions, displacement, tenants’ rights, habitability, etc.) and local health departments that are committed to working on housing as a social determinant of health.
For more information about PPH, please check out:
- Summary Evaluation of 2018-2019 PPH Cohort —PDF
- Four Lessons Learned from PPH —HIP blog post
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
HIP resources on power-building to advance health equity
For additional information about why power-building is important for advancing health equity, please check out these HIP resources:
- Power-building Partnerships for Health: Lessons From Santa Barbara About Building Power to Protect Farmworker Health and Advance Health Equity — Journal of Public Health Management and Practice article
- Power-Building for Health Departments Webinar Series recording
- Shifting and Sharing Power: Public Health’s Charge in Building Community Power — NACCHO Exchange article
- Primer on Power-building, Housing Justice and Health Equity — Report coauthored with RTTC
- Survey of Health Departments about their Collaborations with Community Organizers — Report PDF
- Forming Partnerships with Health Departments, Why it’s a good idea — Shelterforce article
- 8 Ways to Connect with your Public Health Department — Shelterforce article
- Connecting the Dots: Health Inequities, Power, and the Potential for Public Health’s Transformational Role — HIP blog post
- Working with Community Organizers (who, why, how) — Health Equity Guide
Additional resources on power-building
- Glossary of Power Building Terms, Lead Local Collaborative
- Changing States: A Framework for Progressive Governance, USC Equity Research Institute
- Power and Social Change, Grassroots Policy Project
- Power Moves Assessment Guide, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
- Exploring Community-Driven Change and the Power of Collective Action, Lead Local
Contact us to learn more about PPH
If you are a local health department interested in trainings or technical assistance on community power-building or how to collaborate with community organizers, please contact info@humanimpact.org.
If you are a community power-building organization interested in connecting or collaborating with a local health department, please contact megan@humanimpact.org.
