OUR DEFINITION | What is Health?
Our theory of change is based on the County Health Ranking Model of population health that emphasizes the many factors that, if improved, can help make communities healthier places to live, learn, work and play. The 2017 Detroit Food Metric Report illustrates the various determinants that impact health outcomes quite well (Fig.1). The report concludes that “the food we eat impacts our day-to-day health and well-being. Food provides our minds and bodies with the fuel to think!” This is a fundamental principle for GenesisHOPE:
a healthy community begins with
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the American Public Health Association, and GenesisHOPE have adopted a definition to increase consensus around the meaning of health equity.
At GenesisHOPE, we built upon the shared definition, adding the healthy design principle that the purpose of measurements is to address racism.
-- Jeanine C. Hatcher
OUR DEFINITION | What is Health Equity?
Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care.
Health equity reduces and ultimately eliminates disparities in health and its determinants that adversely affect, exclude, or marginalize Black, Latino and Indigenous people of color (BLIPOC).