The Let’s Talk Series is a collection of resources designed to promote discussion and understanding of how key concepts in health equity apply in public health practice. Each resource contains discussion questions to spark dialogue, reflection, and action to address the social determinants of health.
Let’s Talk: Community organizing
To influence the structural and social determinants of health and advance health equity, public health must support power building in communities facing inequities. This Let’s Talk introduces community organizing as an effective and critical tool for building community power.
Let’s Talk: Determinants of health
Informed by conversations with diverse thought leaders, as well as relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature, this Let’s Talk summarizes current thinking about the social, ecological and structural determinants of health. A tree graphic illustrates the underlying drivers of health inequities and supports reflective, action-focused discussion with public health professionals, policy makers and partners.
Let’s Talk: Health equity
This installment of the Let’s Talk series introduces key concepts related to health equity and guides public health action to reduce inequities. This document replaces the 2013 resource Let’s Talk: Health equity.
Let’s Talk: Language of health equity
This installment of the Let’s Talk series explores foundational principles of inclusive health equity language, how power and culture are baked into language, and terminology options that are inclusive and anti-stigmatizing.
Let’s Talk: Redistributing power to advance health equity
Power imbalance is a root cause of health inequities. This installment of the Let’s Talk Series guides recognition and analysis of power imbalance in public health. It also gives examples of how to deploy strategies to both build community power and limit the power of those who benefit from inequity.
Let’s Talk: Intersectionality
Intersectionality moves us from one dimensional understandings of discrimination and marginalization to the multifaceted roots of injustice. This Let’s Talk defines intersectionality and what it means for public health. It helps readers avoid flattening or whitening intersectionality and instead use it for transformative change.
Let’s Talk: Community engagement for health equity
This installment of the Let’s Talk series defines community engagement for health equity and encourages viewing community members as stakeholders and partners in public health decision-making. As a resource, it explores key practices and actions for public health to build capacity for authentic engagement with communities that live with inequities.
Let’s Talk: Whiteness and health equity
This installment of the Let’s Talk series introduces the concept of Whiteness to public health audiences. Through definitions of Whiteness, White privilege and settler colonialism, the resource provides examples of how Whiteness is manifested in public health. The resource also includes insights for practitioners on how to centralize the disruption of Whiteness as an explicit focus in work to improve the health and well-being of communities.
Let’s Talk: Ethical foundations of health equity
This Let’s Talk document discusses the ethics embedded in of health equity. It draws on the concepts of currencies and principles of justice as they relate to interventions designed to improve health equity.
Let’s Talk: Values and health equity
This Let’s Talk document positions values as structural drivers of health equity, influencing priorities and action and at the individual, organizational and societal levels. It pairs well with another Let’s Talk document — Let’s Talk: Foundations of equity.
Let’s talk: Racism and health equity
The seventh release in our Let’s Talk series discusses racism as a critical factor that impacts health and wellbeing. The concepts of race, racism and racialization are described, with attention to settler colonialism and structural racism.
Let’s Talk: Advocacy and health equity
This addition to the NCCDH’s “Let’s Talk” series discusses advocacy within public health. Attention is brought to the shift towards advocacy in upstream policy and structural change. Discussion questions are included to help public health staff examine their work.
Let’s Talk: Moving upstream
This condensed guide describes how public health works at three levels—downstream, midstream, and upstream—to improve everyone’s chance for good health. It provides definitions, examples and strategies to help practitioners and decision makers think about, and work with, the upstream determinants of health.
Let’s Talk: Public health roles for improving health equity
The four public health roles is a framework that can help organizations make health equity a strategic focus of their governance, policies, and partnerships.
Let’s Talk: Universal and targeted approaches to health equity
Research indicates that interventions designed to close the gap between the most and least healthy can unwittingly result in a wider gap. This resource is a condensed guide to the differences, strengths and challenges of targeted, proportionate and universal approaches to improving health equity.