Health Equity

Community Catalyst works to advance health equity by providing leadership and support to federal, state and local consumer health advocates to integrate a health equity lens in their policy goals and in the growth and development of their state advocacy communities. 

Our vision of health equity is:  “a society in which everyone has a fair opportunity to achieve their full health potential, regardless of the individual or population group’s race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, immigration status, class, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression."

The best change occurs when the communities most affected are involved. Community Catalyst believes health equity will be achieved, and health disparities minimized through the full participation of communities of color, and other marginalized identities throughout the policymaking process and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We actively promote the creation and growth of partnerships between consumer health advocates and community based organizations working with communities of color, LGBT people, rural communities, and immigrant populations, and supporting economic and criminal justice, and rural outreach. A number of Community Catalyst’s projects, including Consumer Voices for Coverage, the Affordable Care Act Implementation Fund, Voices for Better Health and Substance Use Disorder, explicitly require the inclusion of health equity policy goals and the involvement of organizations representing communities of color as an integral part of the coalitions working on these programs.

Access to quality, affordable health care is a basic human right; however, improving access to health care is only one component of addressing health disparities. Our work with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the Roadmaps to Health Community Grants program provides funding to organizations working to create positive policy or system changes that address the social and economic factors affecting the health of people in their community.