Recognizing the essential role of advocacy and policy change in achieving health equity, The Colorado Trust’s Health Equity Advocacy (HEA) strategy aims to establish a field of health equity advocates who can strategically promote policy changes that create opportunities for all Coloradans to lead healthy and productive lives regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or where they live. The HEA strategy is a multi-year funding strategy made up of a partnership of 18 direct service, community organizing, and policy advocacy organizations (the HEA cohort); The Colorado Trust; and Social Policy Research Associates (SPR). This funding strategy began in 2013, and is expected to continue at least through 2019 and possibly beyond. The first few years of the HEA strategy have served as a critical time for building relationships across the HEA cohort, and for building a strong foundation and infrastructure to support the advocacy work.
Social Policy Research Associates has the honor of serving as the strategic learning and evaluation partner in the HEA strategy. The evaluation documents and assesses the progress made toward the creation of a robust health advocacy field, identify challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned to support further progress, and provides ongoing learning opportunities for grantees as a means to reflect on and refine activities, tactics, and strategies.
Centering Race in Health Equity Advocacy
SPR is proud to share this newly published learning paper on the work of The Colorado Trust’s Health Equity Advocacy grantees, which discusses how the decision to center race in health equity advocacy came about; describes the framework and strategies that the HEA Cohort’s Racial Equity Team used to build racial equity capacity; and presents results on the progress that has been made. It also includes recommendations for others who may be interested in centering race in social change efforts. The HEA Cohort has much wisdom to offer regarding how to build the racial equity capacity of individuals and organizations promoting health equity in both urban and rural contexts. We invite you to share in our learnings by reading this paper, which is also available in Spanish.
Seeds of the Field: Case Studies of HEA Cohort Organizations
These case studies highlight the health equity advocacy work of the 18 HEA cohort organizations and illustrate growth in both individual and collective capacity to “seed” an emerging health equity advocacy field in Colorado.
- Asian Pacific Development Center
- Center for Health Progress
- Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials
- Colorado Center on Law & Policy
- Colorado Children’s Campaign
- Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition
- Colorado Fiscal Institute
- Grand County Rural Health Network
- Growing Healthy Communities Coalition
- Lake County Health Equity Partnership (Lake County Build a Generation / Full Circle of Lake County)
- Northwest Colorado Health
- Padres & Jóvenes Unidos
- Re:Vision
- The Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities
- Together Colorado
- Tri-County Health Network
- United for a New Economy (formerly FRESC: Good Jobs, Strong Communities)
Engaging Affected Populations in Health Equity: An Emerging Framework in Colorado
This paper presents a framework developed by SPR in collaboration with the HEA cohort to assure authentic engagement of affected communities at multiple points in their health equity advocacy—including at the front end of surfacing issues, developing change agendas, bringing community stories to the fore in advocacy campaigns and assuring that on-the-ground implementation of successfully passed policy is faithful to its intentions.
Download the Engaging Affected Populations in Health Equity: An Emerging Framework in Colorado Report
Health Equity Advocacy Strategy: What is the Evaluation Framework?
The HEA evaluation is guided by an evaluation framework designed to do justice to the innovative nature of the field-building work, while still maintaining flexibility to capture the unexpected and respond to any emerging needs that might arise within the cohort. The framework builds upon key concepts in field building and community-driven change research, and integrates shared understanding generated from the HEA cohort.
Download the Health Equity Advocacy Strategy: What is the Evaluation Framework? Report
Phase 1 – Building Foundations for Change
The paper documents the key efforts and outcomes during the Phase 1 (a 2014 six-month planning phase) where 34 organizations—selected to represent the diversity of stakeholders involved in advancing health equity in Colorado—convened to co-create the Health Equity Advocacy (HEA) Strategy.
Download the Phase I Report
Phase 2 – Progress and Lessons Learned in Health Equity Advocacy Field-Building
This report summarizes the Phase 2 journey (2015 – 2016), reports outcomes at the organizational, cohort, and field-levels, and closes with initiative-level lessons learned and considerations going forward.
Download the Phase II Report
State of the Field: Findings from a Scan of Colorado’s Emerging Health Equity Advocacy Field
This field scan report describes the composition of the health equity advocacy field in Colorado; examines connections within the field; discusses the current state of the field; and offers considerations and reflections for the continued growth of the field.
Download the State of the Field: Findings from a Scan of Colorado’s Emerging Health Equity Advocacy Field