Our Approach
Health inequity is a complex problem that requires careful investigation from multiple perspectives. The committed team at the Center for Health Equity uses a strategic approach built on research, education, community engagement, a cross cutting global local learning theme, and team operating values that align with our mission.
The Challenge
Eliminating disparities is urgent. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health, as well in the care of many health conditions, contribute to both overwhelming human suffering and high financial costs to our society.
Our Comprehensive Strategy
Research and Translation
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity brings scientists from different disciplines together to create innovative theories, methods, and practical interventions to promote equity in health and healthcare for socially at-risk populations. The Center includes NIH and PCORI-funded intervention studies to improve the identification, treatment, and outcomes of patients with chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and depression.
Education and Training
Our team is learning more about these complexities every day and we’re eager to share this knowledge widely. The Center offers opportunities designed for researchers, trainees, health professionals, medical practitioners, students, and community members to advance their understanding of complex health equity challenges. These include educational events, degree courses and learning materials, and mentoring for trainees.
Community Engagement
We are engaged with and include a diverse set of stakeholder communities that includes researchers, health system professionals, patients, community representatives, policy makers, and funders. We focus on:
- Outreach and Knowledge Sharing: We engage in community outreach activities such as public forums, health fairs, special training programs, fact sheets, website and social media posts, and newspaper, magazine, radio and TV interviews.
- Community-Academic Partnerships: We build community-academic partnerships which draw from the respective strengths and expertise of academic institutions and community partners to achieve health equity in socially at-risk communities.
- Public Policy: We are committed to bringing research into policy decisions within private institutions, at all levels of government, and across sectors.
Local Global Learning
Advancing health equity locally and globally is a way of thinking. Our team recognizes the critical value of building upon, and sharing, collective experiences of local communities around the globe. This two-way learning is incorporated into all our center strategies with the goal of addressing persistent barriers that prevent optimal health and wellbeing of disadvantaged and socially at-risk populations in multiple locations in the USA and around the world.
Our Operating Values
Our team values: We practice values critical to achieving health equity: trustworthiness, respect, collaboration, integrity, innovation, rigor, and social justice.
Vision and Mission
- At the Center for Health Equity, we envision a community, a nation, and a world in which every person can achieve his or her best health.
- Our mission is to promote equity in health and healthcare for economically and/or socially marginalized populations through advancing scientific knowledge, promoting sustainable changes in practice and policy, partnering with communities, raising public awareness of health inequities, and training scholars.