Health Equity - California Health Care Foundation

Health Equity
All Californians deserve the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential for health. But, like the nation as a whole, California has long maintained policies, practices, and norms that give preferential treatment at the expense of Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous people. CHCF is working with a wide range of partners to break down structural barriers to care and create a just health care system that is designed to redress, not perpetuate, the inequities that too many of our fellow Californians face.

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Health Affairs Explores Mental Health Link to Birth Outcomes

November 22, 2021

Heather Tirado Gilligan

Behavioral Health, Health Equity, Maternal Health

Stories That Caught Our Attention: The health policy journal Health Affairs published a special issue featuring important perinatal mental health data and analysis.

Educating Perinatal Providers on Implicit Bias and Reproductive Justice

Maternal Health, Health Equity

California Senate Bill 464 aims to reduce pregnancy-related preventable deaths, severe illnesses, and associated health disparities. To help perinatal care providers comply with the law, CHCF supported the development of a free e-learning course that explicitly addresses the requirements of SB 464.

CIN Resource Page: Centering Equity in Quality Improvement

This California Improvement Network resource page provides curated tools to better understand how to integrate equity into care improvement initiatives.

The Pressing Need for Public Health Investment

November 8, 2021

Heather Tirado Gilligan

Stories That Caught Our Attention: California's public health infrastructure required shoring up even before COVID-19 hammered county and state public health systems.

Advancing Black Health Equity

Health Equity, Workforce

CHCF is working with partners to understand the health care experiences of Black Californians and to reform the system to be more responsive to and effective at meeting their needs.

How Doctors in South LA County Increase Patients’ COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence

November 2, 2021

Aisling Carroll

Health Equity, Workforce

Uncertain patients can change their minds if they feel understood and hear the right emotion in a doctor's voice, according to physicians on the front lines.

Improving Birth Equity in California’s Health Care System

Maternal Health, Health Equity

Improving Birth Equity in California's Health Care System is a quality-improvement initiative designed to improve birth care, experiences, and outcomes for, by, and with Black mothers and birthing people in California.

Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity in California — Almanac Collection

All Californians should have access to the high-quality health care they need to lead a long and healthy life. Achieving this requires reducing disparities in health and the social determinants that affect historically excluded or marginalized groups. The Almanac reports in this collection look at health disparities by race and ethnicity in California.

2021 Edition — Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity in California

Aurrera Health Group

Disparities among historically marginalized groups in California occur across many demographic categories. This Almanac provides data that show how people of color face barriers in accessing health care, often receive suboptimal treatment, and are most likely to experience poor outcomes in the health care system.

Information Campaigns, Mandates Produce Some Good News

October 18, 2021

Heather Tirado Gilligan

Public health leaders have been encouraged by increased acceptance of COVID-19 shots in communities that were lagging state and national vaccination rates.

Envisioning a More Just and Inclusive Health Care System

October 15, 2021

Xenia Shih Bion

The new CHCF Health Equity Fellows program welcomes four participants who have the potential to become local or regional catalysts for health equity across California.

Digital Startup Is Transforming Mental Health Care in Schools

September 28, 2021

Behavioral Health, Health Equity, Investing in Innovation, Medi-Cal

The CHCF Health Innovation Fund has invested in Hazel Health’s vision for critical services for students and young adults.

Organizations React to Medi-Cal Managed Care Procurement Request for Proposals

Medi-Cal, Health Equity

In June DHCS issued a draft RFP for the first-ever statewide procurement for commercial Medi-Cal managed care plans. CHCF asked organizations to share the comments they submitted to the agency about the RFP. This report presents common themes from across those shared comments.

Seeking COVID Justice Through Policy Change

September 13, 2021

Health Equity, Homelessness & Health Care

Public Health Advocates, a California organization that advances policies to reduce health disparities, created an initiative to respond to the deep-rooted inequities brought into focus by the pandemic.

Podcast: The Nocturnists

The Nocturnists seeks to give voice to the experience of Black health care workers. This podcast is sponsored by CHCF.