Health equity means that everyone has the opportunity to lead the healthiest life possible.
To achieve this goal requires understanding and addressing obstacles to good health that affect different communities, including factors like poverty, discrimination, and access to healthy food and health care. Research into the patterns of health and disease in a population conclusively show that certain groups have worse health outcomes. The concept of health equity emphasizes that we need to understand what leads to poor health outcomes in those groups and then tailor interventions to improve health accordingly.
Improving the health of any population requires active engagement of diverse partners: academic researchers from many disciplines, health providers and systems, public health officials, local and state government, and, most importantly, community residents, and organizations that work with them.
The ongoing partnership with the City and County of San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) allows for joint work on population health interventions. SFDPH’s collaborations with other health providers to analyze medical record data across the City will provide a more detailed view of the health conditions of San Francisco residents and enable the design of interventions to improve health. Implementation of interventions informed by research findings in partnership with communities and stakeholders, will and bring people together to address local health disparities.