Reducing and Eliminating Health Disparities with Information (REHDI) Initiative

Welcome to the REHDI Initiative website of Public Health Services (PHS), County of San Diego, Health and Human Services Agency. The REHDI webpage includes PHS efforts to reduce health disparities, links to health disparities data including health equity reports, and other resource links. 

Introduction

Vision, Mission, Goal

Timeline

Definitions

Health Equity-Related Definitions 

Health is a state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Public Health refers to what we as a society do collectively to ensure the conditions in which people can be healthy. 

Health disparities preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations. 

Health Equity is when all groups in a population have fair and just opportunities to attain their full health, well-being, and quality of life. 

Health Inequity is the differences in population health status and mortality rates that are systemic, patterned, unfair, unjust, and actionable, as opposed to random or caused by those who become ill. 

Population Health refers to the health of a population as measured by health status indicators and as influenced by social, economic, and physical environments, personal health practices, individual capacity, and coping skills, human biology, early childhood development, and health services. 

Social Determinants of Health refers to conditions in places where people are born, grow, live, play, work, and age that could affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes. These conditions are referred to as social determinants of health (SDOH). 

Health Equity Dashboards

The Community Health Statistics Unit (CHSU) provides health statistics that describe health behaviors, diseases, and injuries for specific populations, in addition to health trends and comparisons to national targets. The website provides more details on how to access each dashboard website. 

Health Equity Resources

Local and Regional Resources

• Collaboration with The Public Health Alliance of Southern California
  The Alliance strives to deepen its commitment to advancing health equity and racial justice through policy and institutional changes. 
• County of San Diego HHSA Community Health Statistics - Achieving Health Equity in San Diego
  The Community Health Statistics Unit developed key reports on the status of health equity in San Diego County (e.g., race/ethnicity, geography, gender, socio-economic status). 
• Exploring Health Disparities in San Diego County: Executive Summary
  This executive summary highlights health disparities through five lenses of health equity including age, gender, geography, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. 
• Health and Human Services Agency Health Equity
  Overview of the Health Equity efforts within Health and Human Services Agency so collective impact actions may be taken to ensure health and well-being for all San Diego County residents.
• Healthy Places Index
  A project of the Public Health Alliance of Southern California, The Healthy Places Index (HPI) is a powerful and easy-to-use data and policy platform created to advance health equity through open and accessible data.  
• Live Well Indicators
  The top 10 Live Well San Diego indicators define what it means to live well in San Diego. Measured across the lifespan among all residents, the Live Well San Diego Indicators capture the collective impact of program, services, and interventions provided by government and community partners striving to improve quality of life so that all San Diego County residents can be healthy, safe, and thriving. 
• Office of Equity and Racial Justice
  San Diego County's Office of Equity and Racial Justice partners with the community to co-create transformative, enduring, structural, and systemic change in San Diego County government. 
• Public Health Services Materials/Resources, Including Those in Multiple Languages
  The Public Health Services (PHS) Department, in the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, provides health services and information in multiple languages, both online and at the County Public Health Centers. This section of the PHS website is a listing od written materials, most of which were developed by the County of San Diego, State of California, or Federal agencies.

State Resources

• California Conference of Local Health Officers (CCLHO) 
  The mission of CCLHO is to prevent disease and improve the health of all California residents. 
• California Department of Public Health, California Office of Binational and Border Health (COBBH)
  COBBH was created to "facilitate cooperation between health officials and health professionals in California and Mexico, to reduce the risk of disease in the California border region and in those areas directly affected by border health conditions."
• California Department of Public Health, Climate Change, and Health Equity Section (CCHES)
  The Climate Change and Health Equity Section (CCHES) embeds health and equity in California climate change planning and embeds climate change and equity in public health planning. 
• California Department of Public Health, Office of Health Equity (OHE)
  OHE works with community-based organizations and local governmental agencies to ensure that community perspectives and input help to shape a health equity lens in policies and strategic plans, recommendations, and implementation activities. 
• California Reducing Disparities Project (CRDP)
  The goal of the CRDP is to simultaneously demonstrate that community-derived mental health practices reduce mental health disparities across the five unserved, underserved, and inappropriately served population groups (African American; Latino/x; Asian and Pacific Islander; Native American; and LGBTQ+) as opposed to traditionally funded mental health services based on Western clinical models. 
• Gender Health Equity Unit (GHEU)
  As part of the California Department of Public Health's Office of Health Equity, the Gender Health Equity Unit (GEHU) plays a leadership role in the development of programs and policies intended to eliminate gender-based health disparities in California. 
• Health Equity Research and Statistics Section (HERSS)
  HERSS is a leading state section in collecting data and disseminating information about health and mental health disparities and inequities in California.
• Health in All Policies Initiative
  Health in All Policies is a collaborative approach to improving the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas. 

National and Federal Resources

• American Medical Association
  The American Medical Association is committed to addressing racial and ethnic health care disparities, through the Minority Affairs Section, the Health Care Disparities Program, and other initiatives. 
• American Public Health Association (APHA): Health Equity
  Creating health equity is a guiding priority and core value of APHA. APHA works with other sectors to address the factors that influence health, including employment, housing, education, health care, public safety, and food. 
• CDC - Social Determinants of Health 
  The CDC recognizes the impact of social determinants of health throughout its programs and provides data and resources to identify and address health inequities caused by unhealthy social environments.
• CDC COVID-19 Response Health Equity Strategy
  Progress Towards Reducing COVID-19 Disparities and Achieving Health Equity.
• CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) - Health Equity
  NCCDPHP addresses health equity through its programs, research, tools and resources, and leadership access. 
• CDC's Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE)
  The mission of OMHEE is to increase CDC's ability to achieve health equity and women's health issues across the nation through science and programs. 
• Collaboration with Big Cities Health Coalition Working Group on Health Equity
  The Big Cities Health Coalition collaborates to advance health equity and health for present and future generations. 
• Health Equity Guide
  This website is structured around a set of strategic practices that health departments can apply to more meaningfully and comprehensively advance health equity. 
• Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE)
  The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity addresses the impact of climate change on the health of the American people. Exercising powers of convening, coordination and collaboration, the Office serves as a department-wide hub for climate change and health policy, programming, and analysis, in pursuit of environmental justice and equitable health outcomes. 
• The National Association of County and Community Health Officials (NACCHO): Health Equity and Social Justice
  The goal of NACCHO's Health Equity and Social Justice Program is to advance the capacity of local health departments to confront the root causes of inequities in the distribution of disease and illness through public health practice and their organizational structure. The program's initiatives explore why certain populations bear a disproportionate burden of disease and mortality and what social arrangements and institutions generate those inequities, to design strategy to eliminate them.
• The National Institute on Minority Health and Disparities (NIMHD)
  The mission of NIMHD is to lead scientific research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities. 
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Office of Minority Health (OMH)
  OMH is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities.

Global Resources

• Sustainable Development Goals
  17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created as an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. It is recognized that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth - all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests. For more information, view the 2023 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 
• The World Health Organization (WHO) - Global Health Observatory Data, Health Equity Monitor
  Data are presented according to social, demographic, economic, or geographical factors helping to identify vulnerable populations and target health policies, programs, and practices. 
• The World Health Organization (WHO) - Social Determinants of Health Unit
  The WHO is a global champion for addressing social determinants of health guiding research and policy to support countries in taking action to address health inequities. 
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. The UDHR was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 and was the result of the experience of the Second World War.