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Health Equity Initiative (HEI), a New York-based, member-driven non-profit membership organization dedicated to advancing health equity, has been awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The grant will support HEI’s efforts to expand its cross-sectoral professional development and capacity building programming with a new webinar series on the role of urban design in achieving health equity. The grant will also partially support the planning, execution and evaluation of the organization’s 2018 Partnership Summit.
Central to both the webinar series and the 2018 summit is the organization’s commitment to fostering community engagement and multisectoral collaborations, as well as to cross-sectoral education on health equity issues and strategies. The 2018 HEI Summit, Engaging New Allies in the Health Equity Movement: A Partnership Summit, also reflects Health Equity Initiative’s determination to bridge silos and build ONE community for health equity across different sectors, professions, and communities. Funds from the RWJF will also partially support the participation in the Summit by 20 community leaders.
“We are honored by this grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which will help us build on the momentum from our 2016 Inaugural Summit. The health equity movement needs the engagement of new allies, to address the many barriers to better health and social outcomes in our communities, neighborhoods, and cities, and to unite against any form of discrimination and structural disadvantage,” said Dr. Renata Schiavo, who serves as HEI’s Founding President, Board of Directors, and is the Project Director under the RWJF grant.
Since its founding in 2011, Health Equity Initiative has grown to encompass nearly 200 dues-paying members, and a group of some 10,000 subscribers/followers from a wide range of sectors and disciplines, from academia, government, health advocacy organizations, and health care institutions, to professionals and community leaders in development, education, urban planning, parks and recreation, information technology, and public health. The organization has already reached more than two million people through its programs, events, and communications
Consistent with RWJF’s overarching objectives, Program Officer Catherine J. Malone sees the award as reflective of the Foundation’s mission of building a culture of health. “Health equity has never been more important. RWJF sees Health Equity Initiative in the forefront of working across sectors to move health equity from research to practice, and we’re delighted to support it.”
HEI Partnership Summit will take place on February 22-23, 2018, in New York City. The Webinar Series is scheduled to span 2017. Audiences for both the Summit and Webinar Series include individuals, professionals, and leaders from a range of disciplines, sectors, and communities who are interested in examining the intersection of health equity and their respective fields, and finding ways to effectively engage in systems-level change to improve the public’s health.
About Health Equity Initiative (HEI)
Health Equity Initiative (healthequityinitiative.org) is a member-driven nonprofit membership organization dedicated to building and sustaining a global community that engages across sectors and disciplines to advance health equity. HEI works to build community, capacity, and communication resources in support of health equity. In its original incarnation at its founding in 2011, HEI’s mission was to engage different communities across the United States and help them prioritize key steps and actions to achieve health equity. HEI also worked in conjunction with local communities to establish a proof of concept for the need for health equity progress indicators that reflected each community’s goals.
About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are working with others to build a national Culture of Health enabling everyone in America to live longer, healthier lives.
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