Health Equity Action Team
(Formerly known as HERT)
The OHE is looking to accomplish a regionalized approach to addressing health equity issues across the Commonwealth. These efforts will be in conjunction will regional health leaders in order to understand the local landscape and community needs, working towards reducing both COVID-19 related disparities as well as regionalized ones.
Regional Health Equity Action Team Goal: to regionalize the evergreen aspects of the COVID-19 Health Equity Response Team recommendations to improve health equity across the Commonwealth.
These regional committees were developed based upon the six Pennsylvania Health Districts allowing for the unique needs of each region to be properly addressed. Through a combination of COVID-19 committee recommendations as well as recently released data sources such as the State Health Assessment, six areas of focus have been developed for the committees to address. These include prejudice & isolation, strategic partnerships, clinical care linkages, political determinants of health, social determinants of health, and maternal & childhood health. The committees will implement one topic, for all resources to be put towards one effort at a time.
Statewide Health Equity Action Team Goal: Communication and education a wide variety of both internal and external partners who all of whom have a strong interest in reducing health disparities across PA.
The statewide Health Equity Action Team meets virtually via Microsoft TEAMs every other Thursday from 10a-11a. Participants include academia, healthcare professionals, state agencies, non-profit organizations, foundations, faith-based organizations and more! This group encompasses over 500+ individuals across the state with between 85-115 of those individuals joining each meeting. The meeting includes 2-3 presentations from both our members as well as external individuals on various health topics related to health equity. Each presenter has between 10-15 minutes to present with a Q/A to follow if time permits.
For more information on how to become a part of HEAT, contact Emily Lebo at elebo@pa.gov.