Mission Statement
Health Equity Initiative (HEI) is a 501(c)3 member-driven nonprofit membership organization dedicated to build and sustain a global community that engages across sectors and disciplines to advance health equity. The vision of health equity is a society where barriers to a healthy lifestyle and people's ability to cope with disease are prioritized, addressed, and removed across communities and cities. Health Equity Initiative is devoted to the development of innovative solutions to address the social determinants of health - the conditions in places where people live, work, and play, which can affect their health, functioning and quality of life.
Description
Health Equity Initiative provides its members and broader community with the knowledge, skills and innovative approaches to tackle health inequities and remove barriers to good health in their own communities, helps them build capacity within their own organizations to integrate a "health equity" lens in their work, and facilitates opportunities for collaboration across the public and private sectors as well as a variety of professions and lay communities. HEI also offers professional development and networking opportunities through lectures, webinars, and training programs, and advocates for the importance of community-specific approaches to prioritizing and addressing the social determinants of health. Currently, the organization functions primarily through a volunteer core, augmented by part-time and project-specific freelance staff. Since its inception, HEI has been a champion of multi-stakeholder approaches to promoting health equity --- ensuring that all the relevant stakeholders have a seat at the table. HEI has taken a bottom-up approach --- bringing together community leaders with urban planners, architects, doctors, nonprofit managers, academics, corporate executives, public health professionals, information technology specialists and many others to brainstorm and come up with innovative solutions to achieving health equity. Through its efforts, HEI acts as a think tank and provides a forum for improving conditions and achieving equity in health for all - regardless of race, gender, age, economic status, and other social situations.
