Our Capacity Building Resources

Drawing on a national scan of nongovernmental public health and community power-building groups, this report explains how we at HIP approach our work to shift the field of public health, the research we conducted to better understand the gaps between public health and community power-building organizations, and the implications of what we’ve learned.

Developed by the CDC Foundation in collaboration with HIP, this report draws upon the experiences of over 144 health department and CBO leaders to make recommendations for how to strengthen partnerships between health departments and community-based organizations.

HIP’s 2023 Year in Review offers a look back at what we accomplished in the past year, and some of the key lessons we learned along the way.

These resources for public health organizations share principles, practices, and tools for building containers and implementing heart-centered practices in their equity work.

We developed three new community health assessment tools – the MAPP Community Context Assessment, the MAPP Community Partner Assessment and the MAPP Power Primer – for local health departments and others to use during Community Health Improvement processes.

This suite of resources and activities is designed for governmental health departments and agencies to dive into power: what it is, who holds it, and how to leverage and redistribute it to create more equitable and healthy communities.

This resource guides health departments through the why and how of partnering with Community Power-Building Organizations (CPBOs) to advance health equity, via four guides with activities to build capacity and lay the groundwork for power sharing partnerships.

This guide is intended to serve as a tool to support community organizers to engage with governmental public health to advance campaign or policy change goals.

Book chapter authored by HIP co-directors Lili Farhang and Solange Gould featured in the new collection “Leading Systems Change in Public Health: A Field Guide for Practitioners.”

We partnered with Critical Resistance to provide examples of how local, state, and territorial health departments can use the 10 Essential Public Health Services to support abolitionist visions and campaigns.

Health Equity Guide created in partnership with HealthBegins, Health Leads, JSI, SIREN at UCSF, and HIP to provide healthcare leaders with guidance for how to deepen, broaden, and elevate their organization’s health equity work, via a framework and process for transformation and accountability.

Article published in NACCHO Exchange, the quarterly publication by the National Association of County & City Health Officials, that describes frameworks to explore the concepts of power and community power building as well as ways that health departments can use these concepts as part of a strategy to advance health equity.

With support from the California Department of Public Health Office of Health Equity, we created this resource with recommendations and actions that local health departments can take to protect worker health and safety during COVID-19 and beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic — and the large number of cases and deaths in jails, prisons, and detention centers — has laid bare the urgent need for decarceration as a public health strategy. This resource includes 8 recommendations and specific actions health departments can take to address the harms of incarceration.

HIP developed this Equity Lens Tool in partnership with Big Cities Health Coalition to support health departments in more directly and routinely addressing equity in COVID-19 planning, response, and recovery decision making.

A healthy democracy is critical for healthy communities, and health departments have a critical role to play to ensure that all communities have a say in the conditions and decisions that impact their lives. Here are five actions health departments can take to ensure healthy voting.

Owing to the collective work of movement builders and advocates, the field of public health has begun to reckon with the longstanding and well documented health impacts of policing and incarceration. This resource includes 5 recommendations and specific actions for health departments to take to help end police violence.

Communities across the US are protesting in response to the ongoing police killings of Black people and to wider social conditions that demonstrate a history of structural violence and racism against communities of color. Here are 5 steps that local and state health departments can take to protect public health in the context of these uprisings and demonstrate support for protesters’ and their demands.

Lead Local was a collaborative research project seeking to answer the question: How does community power catalyze, create and sustain conditions for healthy communities? As part of this project, HIP developed a primer on power, housing justice and health equity with Right to the City Alliance and a survey of health departments collaborating with community organizers.

HealthEquityGuide.org is a resource with inspiring examples of how health departments have concretely advanced health equity — both internally within their departments and externally with communities and other government agencies.

The Narrative Development Toolkit is a resource intended to support community organizers and health equity advocates in developing, using, and adapting transformational narratives to advance equity in the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems. This resource was developed by a workgroup of the National Criminal Justice and Public Health Alliance.

Health Solutions Create Safety is a robust list of 36 replicable programs or interventions and 25 policies that respond to social challenges with public health solutions rather than punitive criminal justice processes. This resource was developed by a workgroup of the National Criminal Justice and Public Health Alliance to help communities achieve shared safety.

The Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment’s Equity Workgroup (which HIP was a member of) published this planning and evaluation framework to help practitioners plan their approach to addressing equity in their HIA.

An example of our training binder that HIP uses when it conducts a two-day HIA training. Includes slides, worksheets, exercises, and other resources that we use over the course of the training.

An assessment of the barriers and successes that public health departments have experienced in participating in criminal justice system reform, with recommendations for action.

Process and impact evaluation of LACDPH Parks After Dark and Women’s Re-Entry Court HIAs.

The Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment’s Equity Workgroup (which HIP was a member of) developed this guide to aid HIA practitioners in how to communicate around equity within HIA while purposefully advancing equity.

A two-year study that looked at how community participation impacted core HIA values like democracy and equity, and how participation affected the success of the HIA.

HIP developed and implemented a new model for conducting rapid HIAs. This model aimed to conduct an HIA within a short decision-making timeline, while maintaining a high level of stakeholder engagement in the process.

HIA practitioners, including HIP, developed and published this document to provide minimum elements and standards for practice in HIA.

Abstract: There has been a surge of interest in Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in the United States, contributing to a range of practices that vary in their effort, duration, and complexity.

Two-page summaries that walk through each of the steps in HIA, as well as community participation in HIA.

HIP published this brief to document how the Alameda County Public Health Department transformed its culture and practice to focus on non-traditional policies that impact health inequities while continuing to provide traditional and essential public health services and programming.

HIP published this paper to highlight for community organizers how a health perspective broadly, and Health Impact Assessment specifically, can be an effective strategy in organizing campaigns, and can be used to build community power and bring about policy wins.

HIP developed this set of questions and answers to support people interested in better understanding how HIA relates to the field of Environmental Impact Assessment.

The Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment’s Equity Workgroup (which HIP is a member of) published this primer on: 1) how HIA practitioners and equity advocates can ensure that the practice of HIA maintains a strong focus on promoting equity and 2) how HIA can be used as a tool to support equitable decision-making processes and outcomes.

A quick summary of the who, what, when, where and why of HIA (English, Spanish) + video of HIA.

A national workgroup of HIA practitioners (which HIP was a member of) developed this resource to show practitioners how to effectively and meaningfully involve diverse stakeholders at every stage of an HIA.

The National Research Council of the National Academies of Science published this book in 2011 to provide a definition, framework, and criteria for HIA, as well as to discuss issues in and challenges to the development and practice of HIA.

Abstract: Stakeholder consultation is a key mechanism in impact assessment. It not only helps identify what benefits may occur, but the process of consultation itself may also generate positive outcomes.

Abstract: Air pollution contributes to asthma, allergies, lung function impairment,
cardiovascular disease, and premature mortality. Transit-oriented development,
roadway expansion, new residential and commercial development, and pollution
mitigation projects impact local and regional air quality…

HIP developed this toolkit to introduce and define HIA, describe each step of the HIA process, and discuss other aspects of HIA such as collaboration and when to use HIA.

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia (one of HIP’s co-founders) developed this guide to support practitioners in the field. It describes the key tasks and activities for HIA as well as the issues and challenges that arise in the course of practice.

Health impact assessment (HIA) offers public health practitioners a concrete way to influence the social and environmental determinants of health and health inequities.

Abstract: As a tool for deliberately planning for and optimizing the ways in which we design our environments, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) holds promise for achieving environmental justice and health equity…