Launched in 2014, the Health Equity Advocacy (HEA) strategy is a multi-year investment of The Colorado Trust (The Trust), designed to build a robust field of organizations that advance policy solutions to address health equity and improve the health and well-being of all Coloradans. Given this focus, from the beginning of this grantee-driven initiative, the cohort of 18 HEA grantee organizations (the Cohort) recognized the significance of understanding and addressing the root causes that lead to persistent, disparate health outcomes for underserved populations. After wrestling with how best to advance health equity for all communities in Colorado—particularly those that face the greatest barriers to achieving optimal health—the Cohort made an explicit commitment to center race as a primary social determinant in its health equity advocacy field-building work.
This paper shares the story of the HEA Cohort’s efforts to live into its commitment to put race at the center of its health equity advocacy field-building work. It describes the rationale for centering race in health equity, the vision for the Cohort’s efforts on this front, the multi-level strategies the Cohort employed, Cohort progress within these levels, and the challenges and emerging lessons learned. (author abstract)