Previous Event: Operationalizing Equity-Promoting Policies

to improve the Social Determinants of Health

September 12 & 13, 2022, 2:00-4:30pm EST

A two-day interactive learning and network building event on operationalizing equity-promoting policies in September 2022.

Recorded sessions and materials are available from the event here.

National health equity initiative networks are coming together to share learnings, provide tools, and build partnerships to operationalize equity-promoting policies. Register to join us on September 12th and 13th, 2022, in a virtual, interactive learning and network building event to share policy tools and implementation strategies that support community development and public health efforts.

By looking at the way policy, practice, and social environment dictate processes, multi-sector partners can both broaden the impact and streamline the implementation of key health and equity-focused upstream interventions.

Attendees will learn from cross-sector leaders in small to mid-sized cities about policy agendas that seek to improve the funding mechanisms and resources to projects that address the social determinants of health, and more importantly challenge systems built upon racism.
Remarks and discussion will provide tangible examples of challenges and local successes in naming, delivering and measuring impact on equity.
The event will harness the wisdom from national experts, Invest Health and other city teams from aligned initiatives working to operationalize specific equity-driven policies and practices.

The event will explore policy solutions that are rooted in health and racial equity, and ultimately improve investment systems in communities.

View videos and resources from the webinar

Agenda

See sessions below.

Day 1 | Mon Sep 12

2:00pm EST | Opening Session

Framing the ‘why’ – why we are coming together across aligned initiatives around health and racial equity focus

Reinvestment Fund and ChangeLab Solutions

Fireside Chat with Intermediary Leaders

Systems of stewardship: Health, Equity and Investment Building the ‘what’ – what aligned initiatives are learning from small to midsized cities

Moderated by Maria Godoy, NPR Science Desk, with panelists from The Rippel Foundation, Reinvestment Fund, The BUILD Health Challenge, National League of Cities, Build Healthy Places Network, and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

3:05pm EST | Concurrent Sessions (see links below)

National and Regional Approaches to Operationalize Equity in Policy and Practice. These sessions provide strategies for implementing the ‘how’ through presentations of helpful strategies and resources that catalyze specific equity promoting policies.

1. Budgeting and Expenditure – Participatory Budgeting Project
2. Equitable data practice in Understanding the Lived Experience – Seam Social Labs
3. Community Development Funders – Reinvestment Fund, Hope Credit Union, and Bon Secours Mercy Health
4. Wealth Creation Solutions – Fair Share Housing Center
5. Community Power Building – The Praxis Project

4:00 pm EST | Closing Session

Keynote – Achieving Health Equity: What will it Take? Systems, mindsets, and conditions enabling equity

An inspiring call to action based in a reality check on challenging the status quo, being the changemaker, and catalyzing action internally, within our own organizations, across systems, and in the places that we are privileged to support.

Shavon Arline-Bradley, R.E.A.C.H. Beyond Solutions

We will close with reflections on what we heard, what we learned and what to expect on day 2.

Day 2 | Tue Sep 13

2:00pm EST | Opening Session

Keynote – Uncovering the Hidden WE in Operationalizing Equity

As people, places and initiative networks work to implement best practices around operationalizing equity, there is strength, connectivity and efficiency in numbers. Helping to see that concentration of resources in various places can help amplify and strengthen the message. Through the WE of this work, we connect the people that make up the systems we are working to address.

Soma Saha, WE in the World & Well-being in the Nation (WIN) Network

Field Quick Bites

Connecting the WE of Innovators, Disruptors, Influencers and Do’ers in the Field. How local leaders are naming transformational change and innovation that advances equity in small to midsized cities.

Moderated by Jeremy Moore, Reinvestment Fund

Invest Health – Missoula City County Health Department

Building Healthier, More Equitable Communities – LAEDA

Community Innovations for Racial Equity – The Cihuapactli Collective

National League of Cities – City of Dubuque

Working Communities – West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation

ReThink Health – Palm Health Foundation

3:15pm EST | Break

3:30pm EST | Concurrent Sessions

Building the WE across sectors and practice. Facilitated breakouts examining specific examples of the ‘how’ of operationalizing equity from the local level using a peer exchange model.

1. Equity in Anchor Institution Procurement – Anchors in Resilient Communities (ARC)
2. Equity in Data – City of Rancho Cucamonga
3. Equity in Food Systems – NeuWater & Associates (Buffalo, NY)
4. Equity in Public Health Investment – Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)

5. Peer Exchange – ChangeLab Solutions

4:15 pm EST | Closing Session

Reflecting on lessons, learnings, and connections from the field on what most resonated and call to action. Spoken word on the urgency of this moment, what connects us and why the health and racial equity movement is imperative to our growth as a nation.

Alyea Pierce, National Geographic Explorer, Poet, Educator

Keynote Speakers

Shavon Arline-Bradley

Mon Sep 12 at 3:50pm EST | Achieving Health Equity: What will it Take?

Shavon Arline-Bradley is the Founding Principal of R.E.A.C.H. Beyond Solutions LLC (www.reachbeyondsolutions.com) a public health, policy/advocacy, faith and executive leadership firm designed to expand the capacity of government, corporation, foundation and non-profit partners based in Maryland (Washington DC metro area). She is also a Co-Founder of The Health Equity Cypher Group, a collaborative of nationally recognized health equity experts designed to expand the work of health, equity and diversity & inclusion in all sectors.

Shavon personally has over 19 years of public health experience. Shavon served in the Office of the 19th United States Surgeon General (OSG) as the Director of External Engagement and senior advisor. Prior to her tenure in the Office of the US Surgeon General, Mrs. Arline Bradley served as the Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning & Partnerships and senior director of health programs for the national NAACP where she served for 6 years.

The Southern New Jersey native is a public health & social justice advocate and former track & field athlete who earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Science and Master of Public Health degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mrs. Arline-Bradley graduated in May 2016 from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University with a Master of Divinity. Shavon earned an Executive Certificate of Executive Leadership, Business Development and Management from Howard University School of Business and earned an Executive Certificate in Diversity & Inclusion from Cornell University.

Shavon is the immediate past co-chair of the National Social Action Commission serving on the national board of directors of Delta Sigma Theta and serves as the current president and chair of Delta for Women in Action. Shavon is a member of the Columbia MD chapter of the Links and is currently the chair of Health & Human Services for the Eastern Area. She also serves as the vice-chair of the NAACP Board Health Committee and a member of the UNCF DMV Leadership Council. Shavon is also a member of Jack & Jill of America and the American Public Health Association and a fellow of the Herndon Director's Institute. Most recently she became an advisory board member of the Oprah Winfrey Network initiative OWN Your Health.

She is a wife and mother of two children.

Somava Saha, MD, MS

Tue Sep 13 at 2:05pm EST | Uncovering the Hidden WE in Operationalizing Equity

Somava Saha, MD, MS (aka Soma Stout) has dedicated her career to improving health, wellbeing and equity through the development of thriving people, organizations and communities. She has worked as a primary care internist and pediatrician in the safety net and a global public health practitioner for over 20 years. She has witnessed and demonstrated sustainable transformation in human and community flourishing around the world.

Currently, Soma serves as Founder and Executive Lead of Well-being and Equity in the World (WE in the World), as well as Executive Lead of the Well Being In the Nation (WIN) Network, which work together to advance inter-generational well-being and equity. Over the last five years, as Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Dr. Saha founded and led the 100 Million Healthier Lives (100MLives) initiative, which brought together 1850+ partners in 30+ countries reaching more than 500 million people to improve health, wellbeing and equity. She and her team at WE in the World continue to advance and scale the frameworks, tools, and outcomes from this initiative as a core implementation partner in 100MLives.

Previously, Dr. Saha served as Vice President of Patient Centered Medical Home Development at Cambridge Health Alliance, where she co-led a transformation that improved health outcomes for a safety net population above the national 90 th percentile, improved joy and meaning of work for the workforce, and reduced medical expense by 10%. She served as the founding Medical Director of the CHA Revere Family Health Center and the Whidden Hospitalist Service, leading to substantial improvements in access, experience, quality and cost for safety net patients.

In 2012, Dr. Saha was recognized as one of ten inaugural Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Young Leaders for her contributions to improving the health of the nation. She has consulted with leaders from across the world, including Guyana, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia, Tunisia, Denmark and Brazil. She has appeared on a panel with the Dalai Lama, keynoted conferences around the world, and had her work featured on Sanjay Gupta, the Katie Couric Show, PBS and CNN. In 2016 she was elected as a Leading Causes of Life Global Fellow.