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In Brief
The de Beaumont Foundation, the American Public Health Association, and the National Collaborative for Health Equity have partnered to create the Healing Through Policy: Creating Pathways to Racial Justice initiative, which in its first phase aims to identify policies and practices that can be implemented on the local level to promote racial healing and advance racial equity. Using the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) framework created by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the initiative recommends a variety of interventions, including displacement and eviction protections, racial impact assessments, local truth commissions and diversion of police funding to support alternatives. Interventions like these carry the benefit of helping accelerate the nation’s response to the health crises caused by racism and its consequences.
Why This Matters
Many public health experts agree that racism is a public health crisis and to advance racial equity we must eliminate the significant disparities that communities of color face when it comes to the social determinants of health. The COVID-19 pandemic is only the most recent example of how the day-to-day experiences of people of color differ based on the community conditions in which they live, grow, work and play. The pandemic exposed the historical and contemporary impacts of structural racism and discrimination in our healthcare and economic systems. By acknowledging these realities and working in direct partnership with those who have been negatively impacted by racism, local leaders can implement policies and practices with immediate, wide-reaching, transformational effects.
The Opportunity
If you are a policymaker, community leader or community organization interested in supporting health equity via racial healing and transformation, the Policy and Practice Briefs published by the Healing Through Policy: Creating Pathways to Racial Justice initiative offer numerous evidence-backed solutions worthy of consideration.
Additional related resources from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation include:
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation: Resources & Lessons from Three Years of Community Collaboration – These seven knowledge briefs provide numerous insights into the implementation of the foundation’s TRHT framework in 14 places since 2017.
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Implementation Guidebook – Created in collaboration with 176 individual and community partners, this guidebook helps those interested in the TRHT framework to plan, implement and evaluate a local community-based effort.
Restoring to Wholeness: Racial Healing for Ourselves, Our Relationships and Our Communities – This brochure offers insights into the foundation’s approach to leading racial healing in communities.
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