Prevention Science for Reducing Health Disparities

Understanding the Roles, Responsibilities, and Factors for Success of Health Equity Officers in Health Care Settings: A Qualitative Study

CONTEXT

Recent national guidelines aimed at addressing equity in health care settings have contributed to an increase in equity officer positions, yet little is known about their roles, responsibilities, or strategies for engaging in health equity work.

OBJECTIVE

To understand the roles and responsibilities of equity officers, as well as facilitators and barriers to their success.

DESIGN

In-depth semi-structured interviews with selected respondents from the Equity Officer National Study.

SETTING

Hospitals and health care systems across the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-six equity officers who had responded to the Equity Officer National Study survey.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The interview guide explored strategies, facilitators, and barriers for engaging in health equity work in hospitals/health systems and communities.

RESULTS

The job roles described by participants fell into 4 categories: community benefits/relations, population/community health, workforce, and health equity. Equity officers described key areas to support success at the individual equity officer level: knowledge and expertise, professional skills, and interpersonal skills; at the hospital level: leadership, workforce, infrastructure and resources, and policies and processes; at the community level: leadership and partnerships; and at the system level: requirements and regulations, investment and resources, and sociocultural and political characteristics of the community. These key areas have been organized to create a Framework for Equity Officer Success.

CONCLUSIONS

The Framework for Equity Officer Success should be incorporated into hospital board, community stakeholder, and policymaker discussions about how to support health equity work in hospitals and health care systems.

Where's the BIPOC Blueprint for Healthy Youth Development? The Role of Scientific Omissions in Our Struggle for Science Translation and Racial Equity in the United States

Prevention Science seeks to advance the prevention research and to translate scientific advances into the promotion of healthy development for all youth. Despite tremendous progress creating a robust evidence-base and set of translational tools, elaborations and expansions for equity are required. Our collective errors of omission as prevention researchers have left prevention practitioners and policy-makers without sufficient information to identify strategies that have been demonstrated to prevent behavioral health problems in young people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color (BIPOC). We first describe the current shortcomings of available evidence, and then we call for individual and collective action to conceptualize equity-enhancing prevention, sample more inclusively, and improve analytic approaches such that we can truly promote the healthy development of all youth.