Date

12-2022

Document Type

Capstone Project (Open Access)

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

Department

Health, Human Services and Public Policy

Major

Collaborative Health & Human Services

First Advisor

Vanessa Littleton-Lopez

Abstract

The Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) is working to create a health equity strategy that would effectively integrate equity practices and establish a roadmap for the department's long-term sustainability of health equity initiatives. Despite decades of acknowledgement of health inequalities and legislative demands to remove them, racial/ethnic minority, rural, and low-income people in the United States continue to have inadequate access to and quality of health care. Many health-care efforts intended to achieve health equity fall short due to knowledge and translation barriers. This project analyzes these inadequacies and emphasizes novel strategies that can help fill them, and also provide recommendations for furthering the area of health equity and guiding the implementation and assessment of policies that aim to reduce health inequalities by improving the quality and accessibility of services. Components will include efficiency of service delivery and support methods, equity in policies and practices, and planning and collaboration strategies that promote equity. It may also contain means for more completely developing a health equity structure within MCHD, such as a strategy for integrating a Health Equity Officer/Office structure inside MCHD to oversee MCHD's health equity activities in the future.

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