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Prevention Institute E-Alert: October 16th, 2015

PI’s THRIVE Provides Practical Guidance to Communities for Achieving Health Equity 

A new Prevention Institute (PI) report, Moving From Understanding to Action on Health Equity: Social Determinants of Health Frameworks and THRIVE, presents an overview of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) frameworks and discusses how our updated THRIVE tool has incorporated the field’s collective knowledge on SDOH. This work builds off our U.S. Office of Minority Health (OMH)-funded cooperative agreement with the National Network of Public Health Institutes.  

PI first developed Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments (THRIVE) in 2002, with funding from the OMH and the California Endowment. Since then, the public health community has created many more frameworks on the factors that shape health outcomes outside the healthcare system—i.e., the social determinants of health, or SDOH.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), SDOHs are largely understood as the broad set of factors that influence health outcomes directly and shape community environments. These factors reach far beyond the healthcare system, and include structural drivers, such as racism, and the conditions of daily living – the community determinants of health. PI is working with WHO's SDOH team to explore the use of our equity tools and updated THRIVE approach as a resource for advancing community efforts in other countries. 

Global, national and local understanding of the factors that influence health, safety, and health equity has deepened significantly over the past decade. The paper highlights similarities among and differences between SDOH frameworks, and provides examples of how they are influencing local, regional, and national health and public health initiatives. 

Among the report’s key findings include: 

  • The increase in the number of SDOH frameworks reflects a growing collective understanding of the determinants that must be addressed to promote health and safety and achieve equitable outcomes.
  • While there are significant similarities among the frameworks, there are also some useful variations.
  • Understanding of how elements outside of the healthcare system impact health and safety outcomes and inequities in these outcomes has fueled new research, literature, frameworks, language, policies, and practice.
  • Many frameworks provide important contributions. THRIVE is unique among the frameworks because it both captures the core set of factors that shape health consistent with the others, and, serves as a tool with supporting resources, to move communities from understanding to assessment to action. 

PI’s approach to health equity emphasizes understanding how structural drivers play out at the community level, with a focus on actionable strategies that improve health and safety and promote equity. For example, among its 12 community health factors, our THRIVE tool recognizes “What’s Sold and How It’s Promoted,” which allows communities to prioritize access to healthy, affordable food or focus on reducing alcohol density, both of which are associated with improved health outcomes. “The Social Networks & Trust” factor asks, Do people in my community know, trust and support each other? And, “The Parks & Open Space” factor asks, Are there safe places where people can enjoy nature and be active in my community? THRIVE’s supporting resources detail examples and provide sample strategies that improve community conditions for health.

THRIVE itself continues to be used by public health institutes and their state and local partners— including community health workers, community development corporations, community organizers, health clinics, hospitals and others— to develop community-informed, measureable, and actionable strategies on SDOH. PI’s updated THRIVE continues to help move communities from understanding determinants of health, to actions that create healthier, more equitable communities, our new paper finds. 

The number and diversity of communities using THRIVE as a framework and tool continues to grow. Read our paper to learn more about how communities can use THRIVE to address health equity through changes in the community environment.  

Fact Sheet: Links Between Violence and Health Equity

This fact sheet demonstrates how preventing violence is an important component of any effort to achieve health equity and create healthy communities. Learn more here.

THRIVE’s Updated Community Assessment Worksheet

PI recently updated its THRIVE webpages and uploaded an interactive THRIVE Community Assessment Worksheet. Click here to access the worksheet, and read more about our THRIVE tool and framework, and about some of the different ways THRIVE has been used in diverse communities with diverse partners.  

Violence and Physical Activity

PI was interviewed for a new article in JAMA on exercise and gardening as tools to reduce community violence. The piece builds on learnings of our report linking violence prevention with physical activity and healthy living.  

PI Training and Consultation Services

PI has extensive experience providing health equity training through multiple modalities, such as the Health Equity and Prevention Primer and the Health Equity Training Series, and has provided consultation to national, state, and local coalitions, agencies and funders. For more information, e-mail us at consult@preventioninstitute.org

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