Health Equity Resources
Tools to Help Remove Barriers to Health
The following resources provide information and strategies to help communities, programs, and initiatives work to remove barriers to health and achieve health equity.
Federal Plan
The Federal Plan for Equitable Long-Term Recovery and Resilience lays out an approach for federal agencies to cooperatively strengthen vital conditions necessary for improving individual and community resilience and well-being nationwide. Vital conditions identify factors that people depend on to reach their full potential, organized into 7 categories:
- Belonging and Civic Muscle
- Thriving Natural World
- Basic Needs for Health and Safety
- Humane Housing
- Meaningful Work and Wealth
- Lifelong Learning
- Reliable Transportation
Thriving Together: A Springboard for Equitable Recovery and Resilience in Communities Across America provides a guiding framework for things all people and places need to thrive.
CDC’s Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication are intended to help public health professionals ensure their communication products and strategies adapt to the specific cultural, linguistic, environmental, and historical situation of each population or audience of focus.
National Youth Sports Strategy [PDF-5.7MB] outlines steps to ensure young people have the opportunity and access to play sports. Playing sports is less common among girls and among young people with a disability, from racial and ethnic minorities, and from households with low socioeconomic status.
State Toolkit
Health Equity Resource Toolkit for State Practitioners Addressing Obesity Disparities [PDF-3.8MB] is for state health departments and their partners. The material is designed to increase their capacity to work with communities to help prevent obesity. The primary focus is on how to create systems and environmental changes that will reduce obesity disparities and achieve health equity. See the accompanying website for the state toolkit.
Community Efforts
Practitioner’s Guide for Advancing Health Equity: Community Strategies for Preventing Chronic Disease provides lessons learned from evidence- and practice-based strategies. The innovative ideas highlight how to maximize the effects of policy, systems, and environmental improvement strategies—all with the goal of reducing health disparities and advancing health equity.
Healthy Neighborhood Investments: A Policy Scan and Strategy Map identifies several policy actions for advancing health and racial equity through cross-sector investments.
Designing Community Health Efforts with Health Equity in Mind includes suggestions for community efforts to reduce health disparities.
CPSTF Findings for Social Determinants of Health lists intervention approaches reviewed by the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) with summaries of the finding for each. Includes links to a summary of evidence and supporting materials.
CDC COVID-19 Response Health Equity Strategy focuses on immediate actions that can be used to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and track the intended outcomes.
Health Equity Data
- Data, Trends, and Maps has state and national indicators for obesity/weight status, breastfeeding, fruits and vegetables, physical activity, sugary drinks, and television viewing. For health equity data, choose race/ethnicity or other demographic in the “view by” field.
- Social Vulnerability Index identifies communities that may need support before, during, or after disasters. Social vulnerability may indicate health disparities.
- Community Resilience Estimates refer to the capacity of individuals and households to absorb, endure, and recover from the health, social, and economic effects of a disaster such as a hurricane or pandemic. Low resilience may indicate health disparities.
- Chronic Disease Indicators provides data for 18 categories. For heath equity data, choose race/ethnicity and gender in the “view by” field.
- Aerobic and Muscle-Strengthening Physical Activity by Race/Ethnicity Across Income Levels reports trends among US adults, 1998–2018.
- Minority Population Profiles includes demographic, education, economic, insurance coverage, and health status information.
- Diagnosed Diabetes provides data by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education.
- Places: Local Data for Better Health includes chronic disease measures by location.
- Healthy People 2020 Overview of Health Disparities shows changes in disparities during the Healthy People 2020 tracking period. An interactive chart and table can be filtered by topic area and population characteristics, including sex, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, family income, disability status, and geographic location.
