Resource Library

Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities and the culture at large.

Chapter 2 of "Leading Systems Change in Public Health: A Field Guide for Practitioners" discusses:

• How to develop a shared analysis and expand our mental models regarding the manner in which power imbalances, racism, and other forms of oppression define and structure the systems that drive health.
• Attending to the work of “being” together, and not just “doing” together, as a way of deepening the relationships necessary to disrupt these patterns at the interpersonal, team, organizational, and community levels.
• Establishing change processes that embody a model of sharing power and shifting who represents and is leading transformation.

APHA works to improve access to care, bring about health equity, and support public health infrastructure. The Racism and Health section of their website includes a list of resources on how to use a healing and heart-centered approach to eliminate the false belief that any people are superior to others based on their skin color.

Racial disparities in health and wellbeing are well documented. In 2003, the Institute of Medicine issued the landmark report Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare, which connected racism in mortgage lending, access to housing, employment, and criminal justice to racial health disparities. This report and the World Health Organization’s 2008 report on health equity led to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Social Determinants of Health Framework (SDOH), which recognized that racial health disparities are a result of inequalities in education, employment, healthcare, housing, and law enforcement.

The Evidence-Based Resource Guide Series is a comprehensive set of modules with resources to improve health outcomes for people at risk for, with, or recovering from mental and/or substance use disorders. It is designed for practitioners, administrators, community leaders, and others considering an intervention for their organization or community.

This toolkit is a resource for communicators who want to change the narrative about adolescence and adolescent development.

This framework can be used by leaders in the healthcare, community development, and philanthropic sectors to work with community development corporations to determine the most effective ways to rectify past harms done to historically marginalized and under-resourced communities in ways that are both tangible and sustainable. In addition, this framework provides guidance for institutions to more effectively partner with BIPOC communities to build trust, and ultimately solidarity to develop a shared vision of racial healing. 

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a truly comprehensive response to substance use and abuse in our country can be implemented. Specifically, this response includes BOTH environmental/policy efforts and individually-focused prevention efforts in order to reduce substance abuse population-wide. Furthermore, it is critical to recognize the invaluable role local, community-based coalitions play in implementing a comprehensive array of evidence-based strategies to reduce underage drinking, tobacco use and illicit drug use.

This resource guides health departments through the why and how of partnering with Community Power-Building Organizations (CPBOs) to advance health equity, via four guides with activities to build capacity and lay the groundwork for power sharing partnerships.

Assessing the risk and protective factors that contribute to substance use disorders helps practitioners select appropriate interventions.

Many factors influence a person’s chance of developing a mental and/or substance use disorder. Effective prevention focuses on reducing those risk factors, and strengthening protective factors, that are most closely related to the problem being addressed. Applying the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) helps prevention professionals identify factors having the greatest impact on their target population.

MPHA's virtual Annual Conference and Meeting on December 13 from 9 AM to 1 PM! The keynote speaker will be Lauren Smith, Chief Health Equity and Strategy Officer for the CDC Foundation. She will be discussing the critical importance of data collection as a means of measuring health inequities and developing effective strategies to address them.

SAMHSA’s Prevention Day is happening Monday, January 30, 2023, in conjunction with CADCA National Leadership Forum. The event will take place at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

This focus group guide, developed for Massachusetts Opioid Abuse Prevention Collaborative, contains an overview of the structure of a focus group; tips for facilitators; and sample questions for various audiences such as active users, families of users, treatment providers, youth/teens, police/first responders, the recovery community, and the emergency department staff.

Community Engagement: An Essential Component of an Effective and Equitable Substance Use Prevention System

This guide provides guidance for developing a logic model specific to the SAPC grant, a logic model examples, as well as a logic model template.