Leveraging Healthy People 2030 to Build Non-Traditional Multisector Partnerships

March 27, 2024 | Corinne Gillenwater, Megan DeNubila-Griffin

The goal of this toolkit is to help state and territorial health agencies (S/THAs) build non-traditional, non-public health sector partnerships to improve health outcomes and advance health equity. The Healthy People 2030 objectives, aligned closely with the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework and Health in All Policies (HiAP) lens, can serve as the cornerstone of these collaborations. This toolkit is implementation-focused, providing partnership-building and -sustaining skills that are rooted in Healthy People 2030 tools and success stories and can be operationalized for community needs.

Overall, this toolkit encourages S/THAs to implement these described strategies in their own public health practice to:

  1. Establish and maintain partnerships within and across sectors at the state and territorial level to create a shared vision of health.
  2. Respond to public health priorities collaboratively and strategically.

On This Page


Using Healthy People 2030 in Non-Traditional Partnerships to Improve Public Health

Healthy People 2030 is the “North Star of achieving health equity,” acting as a guiding force for S/THAs to plan, implement, and evaluate multisector partnerships. Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), Healthy People 2030 promotes a vision to create “a society in which all people can achieve their full potential for health and well-being across the lifespan.”

The Healthy People 2030 framework has five overarching goals, with Goal 5 being the focus of this toolkit: “Engage leadership, key constituents, and the public across multiple sectors to take action and design policies that improve the health and well-being of all.” To advance this goal, Healthy People 2030 provides tools for action and data tools to encourage multiple sectors to come together to improve health and advance health equity. By using these tools and learning more about national objectives, including high-priority Leading Health Indicators, multisector partnerships can adapt Healthy People 2030 to address the specific needs of their jurisdictions.

Healthy People 2030 Social Determinants of Health: Economic Stability, Education Access and Quality, Healthcare Access and Quality, Neighborhood and Built Environment, Social and Community Context
Figure 1: Social Determinants of Health graphic. Source: Healthy People 2030, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Retrieved Nov. 20, 2023, from https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health. 

Developing Multisector Partnerships by SDOH Domain

Domain: Economic Stability

Goal: Help people earn steady incomes that allow them to meet their health needs

Example objectives:

The Healthy People 2030 SDOH framework helps S/THAs decide whom to work with in multisector partnerships to improve health and advance health equity. SDOH are “the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks." Healthy People 2030 categorizes SDOH into five domains: economic stability, education access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context.

Partners and Success Stories

The following are examples of how the framework drives which partners should be included, as well as partnership success stories.

Domain: Economic Stability

Partners:

  • Banks
  • Employment agencies
  • Public and private businesses

Success story:

Domain: Education Access and Quality

Partners:

  • Teachers’ unions
  • Parent-teacher organizations
  • Universities and their libraries

Success story:

Domain: Healthcare Access and Quality

Partners:

  • State health departments
  • Local health departments
  • Hospitals as anchor institutions

Success story:

Domain: Neighborhood and Built Environment

Partners:

  • Transportation agencies
  • Housing authorities
  • Environmental health organizations

Success story:

Domain: Social and Community Context

Partners:

  • Mental health nonprofits
  • Religious groups and faith-based communities
  • Voting rights groups

Success story:

ODPHP lays out four steps of how to use Healthy People 2030 in multisector partnerships:

  1. “Identify needs and priority populations.” Partners can come together to review Healthy People 2030 national objectives and explore disparities data to determine which ones best align with their proposed partnership work, and center the lived experiences of populations most affected by the health issue of their choice.
  2. “Set specific targets.” Use the plentiful Healthy People 2030 data tools to establish goals for the partnership, find existing data sources, and adopt an effective methodology for the partnership’s own data collection, analysis, and evaluation.
  3. “Identify evidence-based tools and resources through successful programs, policies, and interventions.” Learn about and build upon existing public health collaborative work, and discover Healthy People 2030 evidence-based resources to employ and adapt for unique partnership and community needs.
  4. “Monitor national progress and use federal data as a benchmark.” Use Healthy People 2030 national data as a baseline to guide partnership planning. Collect data on the outcomes of partnership efforts, and see how partnership progress compares to national data, which are updated regularly.

Key Actions

Types of Non-Public Health Sector and Non-Traditional Partnerships for Consideration

Public health professionals can benefit from partnering with non-public health and non-traditional sectors, harnessing the power of relatively untapped potential to enhance the health of the communities they serve. Public health can join forces with non-traditional stakeholders such as:

  • Schools.
  • Childcare and child welfare services.
  • Healthcare systems.
  • Food and nutritional programs.
  • Housing and utilities.
  • Transportation services.
  • Income security and employment services.
  • Technology.
  • Environment and green spaces.
  • Home- and community-based services.
  • Social support networks.

Partnerships fall along a spectrum, the focus of this toolkit being on collaboration. In this stage, multisector partners can share information, plan and change activities, pool resources, and enhance each other’s capacity to maximize collective mutual benefit and achieve common goals. It is in a collaborative partnership that the Healthy People 2030 foundational framework shines by providing objectives, tools, and data to support the additional component of capacity building.

Networking

Exchanging information for mutual benefit.



Coordination

Exchanging information and altering activities for mutual benefit and to achieve a shared purpose.


Cooperation

Exchanging information, altering activities, and sharing resources for mutual benefit and to achieve a shared purpose.

Collaboration

Exchanging information, altering activities, sharing resources, and enhancing the capacity of another for mutual benefit and to achieve a shared purpose.

A prime example of a non-traditional partnership is one between public health and the private sector. Historically seen as at odds with their goals, the public health and the business sectors have realized how deeply connected public health and economic well-being are. Business leaders have a stake in improving public health because of the effects of good health on employee presenteeism and productivity, operating costs and profits, consumer behaviors, and company sustainability.

Multisector Partnerships for Public Health: Public and Private Sector Collaboration

Recognizing the link between public health and business, the de Beaumont Foundation launched the Innovation Multi-sector Partnerships for Community Transformation (IMPACT) in Public Health in 2022 to encourage collaboration between governmental public health departments and the private sector to improve economic well-being, community health, and public health equity. Another example of an effort to bring together businesses and public health organizations is the Health Action Alliance, which is supported by the de Beaumont Foundation, the Ad Council, the Business Roundtable, the CDC Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Health Action Alliance offers resources and promising practices to assist businesses in improving employee health, safety, and equity. Individual businesses can also make a difference in their employees’ health outcomes by creating upstream policies that support their wellbeing. For example, the Rosen Hotels and Resorts company based in Orlando, Florida, moved beyond solely workplace wellness by investing in SDOH and partially covering college tuition, opening a medical center, and establishing a community preschool for employees and their families.

Partnering with non-traditional sectors builds capacity for public health work. For example, the philanthropy sector can bring expertise in leadership, program funding, grant processes, advocacy, and social movement development. Community-based organizations can assist in supporting efforts around SDOH, capacity building, education and awareness, and investment in low-income communities as well as communities who have experienced historical oppression. There are also advantages to working closely with anchor institutions, which are place-based organizations like hospitals and universities, that strongly influence the local economy. Anchor institutions are in a unique place to affect SDOH through job creation, income and wealth building, housing, community safety, and capacity building among residents. These collaborations facilitate reciprocal capacity building, promote mutually beneficial outcomes, and advance health equity by prioritizing SDOH.

Multisector Partnerships for Public Health: Anchor Institutions

A prime example of anchor institutions working toward better public health outcomes includes the Cleveland Greater University Circle Initiative, which involves multi-sectoral partners like Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Public Library, and University Hospitals of Cleveland. Together, these partners influence community health by buying goods and services locally, hiring residents to bolster the local workforce, supporting employer-assisted housing, and promoting community engagement. Additionally, the anchor institution of Trinity Health created the Transforming Communities Initiative and offered $80 million in community grants nationwide to initiate affordable housing, healthy food access, and early childhood education projects.

Many places are already engaging in partnerships between public health and non-traditional sectors to improve health outcomes. The following are just a few examples:

  • The Illinois Department of Public Health partnered with Walgreens to offer gift cards when women signed up for cancer screenings in the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer program. The department also teamed up with the Chicago White Sox to give free baseball tickets to the first 100 men screened for cancer at the stadium.
  • The city of Los Angeles, CA, created the Park After Dark program with the support of the Parks and Recreation Department, the Human Relations Commission, and the Sheriff’s Department. This program extends park hours and offers activities during the summer to reduce neighborhood violence, promote physical activity, and increase access to health services, including sexually transmitted infections (STI) testing.
  • The health department in Minneapolis, Minnesota, partnered with nonprofit produce distributor BrightSide Produce to ensure that grocery stores, corner stores, gas stations, dollar stores, and pharmacies stocked healthy foods for residents.
  • The local health department in Walworth County, Wisconsin, convened over 20 organizations and businesses—including land use and resource management, housing developers, and the faith community—to plan interventions to increase affordable housing options in the community.

Key Actions:

  • Think about outside-the-box partners who can be invited to a collaboration to improve health outcomes and advance health equity.
  • Research local non-traditional partnerships that are positively impacting health in nearby communities.
  • Reach out to and connect with leaders of non-public health sector, non-traditional partnerships to discuss best practices.

Foundations of Strong Partnerships

To forge strong partnerships between public health and non-traditional sectors, the foundations of the collaborative relationship should be marked by the following characteristics.

Joint Mission and Shared Values

Partners must determine shared purpose, align values, and communicate overlapping priorities, which will make it easier to see natural points of collaboration.

Partnership Agreement of Shared Power and Understanding of Collective Benefit

A partnership agreement or memorandum of understanding can clarify relationships, expectations, deliverables, and accountability mechanisms.

Defined Roles and Responsibilities

Partnership work flows more smoothly when all partners understand who is responsible for what deliverable, when it is due, and why that partner adds value in a specific context. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the partners involved helps leaders delegate roles and responsibilities according to skillsets.

Joint Resources

Partners must be willing to share key resources and expenses to achieve their goals. There are various resources partners can share, such as human resources, subject matter expertise, technical assistance deliverables, web trainings, data methodology, funding sources, networking connections, and meeting spaces.

Shared Understanding of Language

Partners must come to a mutual understanding of what matters for each partner. Take the time to comprehend the specific jargon, key terms, and significant players relevant to their sector. Developing a common shared language helps to identify natural points of connection, better understand how all involved play a part in advancing shared missions and goals, and track progress appropriately for each sector.

Awareness: Health vs. Healthcare

Partners should know the difference between projects that increase access to healthcare and those that address the root causes of health. Partnerships that tackle root causes have a more profound impact on public health. Strong partnerships between various sectors aim to influence SDOH, such as affordable housing, access to reliable transportation, educational and job opportunities, access to healthy foods and exercise, and anti-racism efforts.

Buy-In and Trust from Leadership

Leaders from every organization involved in the partnership must believe in the value of working together and the potential of changing health outcomes for the better. Cultivating leadership buy-in can include presenting data on why a public health issue is important to address and explaining how a project aligns with all partners’ missions, values, organizational structures, and operations.

Buy-In and Trust from Community Members

It is also crucial to build trust and buy-in with communities most impacted by health disparities. Partners need community members’ input and engagement to ensure a proposed project will be effective and sustainable. The partnership should be built on a foundational understanding that the most impacted community members are subject matter experts and must be leaders and decision-makers in every stage of the partnership process. Authentic engagement means inviting the community to co-create solutions. A great place to start building the relationship between partners and community members is asset mapping, which focuses on already existing strengths and opportunities, instead of a deficit approach that concentrates on problems.

Meaningful and Accessible Marketing and Communications

Partners should share the relevant stages of their collaborative projects in clear, succinct language with all stakeholders, ranging from funders to the public. All marketing and communications should be accessible and inclusive, such as by using appropriate reading levels, person-first language, preferred terms for populations, and other best practices detailed in the CDC’s Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication.

Compromise and Flexibility

Strong partnerships can adapt to any changes, opportunities, and challenges that emerge throughout a project. Compromise and flexibility allow for local specificity, meaning that plans, projects, and policies can be adapted to fit the needs of states, territories, and communities.

Data/Information Collection and Sharing

Strong partnerships discuss expectations for advancing equitable data practices related to collecting and sharing information during planning, implementation, assessment, and evaluation. Partners can use Healthy People 2030 data tools to strategize which data and information access, reporting, and transparency methods are most appropriate for all involved.

Information Sharing and Peer Learning

Strong partnerships should participate in information sharing and peer learning throughout the life of the project, including sharing resources about and seeking help with action planning, assessment, interventions, and resource generation. This collaborative style of sharing best practices and lessons learned strengthens the sustainability and scalability of partnerships and their projects.

Feedback and Continuous Quality Improvement

Partners should document and incorporate ongoing feedback about the collaboration, taking note of what is working and addressing what is not working in the partnership. Ongoing feedback throughout the partnership will help different sectors to course correct as issues arise.

Building Strong Multisector Partnerships for Public Health: Healthy People 2030 Tools and Resources to Use

The following resources directly correlate with the aforementioned characteristics of strong partnerships:

How to Use Health in All Policies (HiAP) to Build Non-Traditional Partnerships

Strong partnerships between public health and non-traditional, non-public health sectors utilize a HiAP foundational lens in their work to maximally affect health outcomes. HiAP is an approach that involves collaboration across various sectors to name and incorporate health impacts into the policymaking process. HiAP recognizes that policies, ranging from transportation to education to voting rights and everything in between, influence public health outcomes. Strong partnerships can practice HiAP by:

  • Considering health and equity implications when making decisions and investments.
  • Encouraging cross-collaboration among sectors that otherwise may not be paired together.
  • Translating the benefits of partnerships into specific organizational values.
  • Conducting health impact assessments (HIAs) to ascertain the intentional and unintentional impacts of a policy decision on public health.
  • Incorporating the concept of health equity into multisectoral policies, such as through “health equity mapping” or “health equity report cards.”

How Non-Traditional Partnerships Can Advance Health Equity

According to the Healthy People 2030 framework, health equity is “the attainment of the highest level of health for all people.” Multisector partnerships can employ the Healthy People 2030 framework to advance health equity. These partnerships must focus on avoiding inequalities, addressing past and current social injustices, and incorporating SDOH into policy and program decisions.

When partnerships between public health and non-public health organizations emerge, it is important to ascertain who is at the decision-making table and who is not. These partnerships must consistently and meaningfully engage community members impacted by marginalization and oppression. Without this engagement, a policy or program decision would not garner community buy-in nor further health equity.

Strong partnerships between public health and non-public health sectors can advance health equity by:

  • Providing support—including through monetary investments, resources, and coaching—to community organizations already doing work addressing SDOH.
  • Promoting community capacity building through leadership development, community organizing, organizational development, and collaboration among organizations.
  • Advocating for education about and adherence to civil rights laws and protections focused on the health of historically oppressed groups.
  • Investing time, money, and effort into new programs and policies that specifically improve equity in SDOH for historically oppressed populations, such as job creation programs, development of safe green spaces, and establishment of farmers’ markets in food deserts.
  • Framing the advancement of health equity as great for all sectors. For example, encourage business leaders to partake in health equity efforts by connecting health inequities to poor productivity, higher operating costs, and lower profits.
  • Sharing blueprints for actionable steps toward health equity widely so that others may adapt them to their situations. This is where information sharing and peer learning shine.
  • Collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data related to SDOH and health equity. For example, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities developed the PhenX Social Determinants of Health Assessments Collection to help people and organizations measure individual and structural factors that affect health behaviors and outcomes.

The Healthy People 2030 Champion program's strong partnerships are dedicated to addressing SDOH and advancing health equity. Supported by ODPHP, the Healthy People 2030 Champion program recognizes myriad governmental, non-governmental, nonprofit, business, academic, and philanthropic organizations that influence the health outcomes of states, tribes, and local communities. By collaborating with non-traditional organizations in the Healthy People 2030 Champion program, public health can build strong partnerships using foundational HiAP and health equity approaches.

More on the Healthy People 2030 Champion Program

The Healthy People 2030 Champion program demonstrates a strong partnership between the federal government and various organizations, where the former provides relevant information, tools, and resources to aid the latter in doing work that aligns with the Healthy People 2030 vision, such as SDOH and health equity. ODPHP has a running list of Healthy People 2030 Champion and encourages any organization with a mission that aligns with the Healthy People 2030 framework or objectives to apply to become a Champion. Applications will remain open throughout the 2020-2030 decade and are reviewed on a rolling basis. For more details on what it truly means to be a Healthy People 2030 Champion, listen to ODPHP Deputy Director Carter Blakey espouse the program’s importance on ASTHO’s Public Health Review Morning Edition newscast.

Key Actions:

  • Determine which foundational components the partnership has. Which ones are strong, which ones need to be improved, and which ones are missing? Celebrate the strengths and collaboratively devise a game plan of how to add or bolster in areas for improvement.
  • Create a checklist of ways to incorporate a HiAP approach and a health equity lens throughout the life of the partnership and its projects. Revisit this checklist repeatedly to hold partners accountable.
  • Discover the various Healthy People 2030 resources that can help build strong, non-traditional partnerships for public health, and apply to the Healthy People 2030 Champion program.

Sustainability of Partnerships

Public health and non-traditional sectors must work together to create durable partnerships. The key to a sustainable partnership is to foster belief in and devotion to shared goals and better health outcomes. Partners must be committed to and meaningfully engaged in projects, going beyond simply being present in meetings and moving toward significant time, effort, and funding invested to substantially affect public health.

Strategic Plans

Partners should engage in the joint development of long-term strategic plans as well as different funding strategies, including braiding and layering streams of funding for common goals. Strategic plans should describe partnership components, such as leadership, operations processes, delegation of roles, action planning, funding planning, promotions, and community support, with an eye toward sustainability.

Core Set of Leaders

It is important to have leaders from each sector specifically dedicated to the work of the partnership. Ideally, for example, a partnership between a department of public health and a bank would have a core set of leaders from both organizations whose primary role is moving the goals of the partnership forward. This committed leadership extends the life of the partnership.

Complementary Skills

Partnerships endure when they are well-rounded. When bringing together various sectors, make sure to choose partners whose skills complement, but not copy, each other. As the partnership evolves, there should be a written document, such as a partnership agreement or group charter, that partners can access to remind themselves of their roles, goals, and purpose.

Contingency Plans

Although it is important to have a shared set agenda and enumerated partner roles, it is equally crucial to make these living documents with contingency plans, altering them as unexpected changes, obstacles, and ideas emerge. Furthermore, partnerships must be dynamic and responsive to the changing health needs of communities as well as ever-evolving public health data and research.

Celebrate Small Wins

To maintain stamina, partners can categorize their goals as short-, medium-, and long-term to allow for different parameters for tracking, evaluating, and celebrating progress. Setting and breaking down realistic, achievable goals will foster lasting success. In this vein, partners should make it a habit to celebrate the small wins of the collaboration, which will fuel motivation to continue more long-term and complex partnership work.

Expand and Diversify Funding

Funding streams are crucial to the sustainability of partnerships and projects. Partners should create a strategic plan to expand and diversify their funding sources, which can include grants, mini-grants, in-kind, federal, state, local, private, and more. Multisector partnerships are desirable for funders, which is demonstrated in various grants and funding opportunities that encourage collaboration. Partners should share impact reports, briefs, or presentations detailing the influence of the partnership and the direct and indirect costs needed to make that impact.

Accountability Mechanisms

Accountability is critical to sustaining multisector public health partnerships because partners must have methods of holding each other responsible for their commitments. Fostering mutual accountability among partners helps build trust and move toward shared goals. The following are additional examples of implementable accountability mechanisms that partners can use and even explicitly name in their partnership agreements or memoranda of understanding:

  • Explicitly defined expectations and deliverables for each partner.
  • Adequate staff and resources to fulfill commitments.
  • Clear policies and standards for group decision-making.
  • Understanding of the effects and consequences of not following through on commitments.
  • Agreed upon targets, metrics of performance, and progress review methods.
  • Use of project management skills and tools for all partners to follow along with project steps and timelines.
  • Open channels of communication, whether in-person or virtual, to address concerns in the partnership, as well as honest acknowledgment when mistakes happen and a concerted effort to change behaviors.
  • Input from the public and external parties, such as through public forums or comment periods, to allow for broader perspectives on partnership goals and progress. Followed by a clear demonstration of how partnerships incorporated that feedback to make changes.
Engagement Mechanisms

Keeping partners engaged in the purpose of the partnership is also crucial to sustainability. Examples of partner engagement mechanisms include:

  • The drafting and revisiting of written expectations for roles and responsibilities.
  • Creation of task forces to build trust and expertise in smaller groups.
  • Regular recognition of and rewards for collaborative work.
  • Opportunities for relevant workshops and training sessions to promote continuous learning.
  • Regular sharing of partnership results connected to health outcomes.

A critical component of engagement is regular communication, with partners choosing methods that work best for them, such as live meetings, email updates, or monthly virtual gatherings. Additionally, partnership leaders should encourage regular feedback from individual partners and the communities they aim to serve through one-on-one meetings, surveys, and data tracking to engage all these stakeholders in partnership goals for the long term.

Key Actions:

  • Set a top priority of creating a long-term strategic plan at the start of the partnership. Build the strategic plan using the guiding steps of the partnership life cycle.
  • Identify diverse funding streams that the partnership can braid and layer to carry out the work of improving health outcomes and advancing health equity.
  • Embed this toolkit’s accountability and engagement strategies in partnership agreements and other written, living documents describing goals, roles, and expectations.

10 Steps for Strong Public Health Multisector Partnerships

  1. Open up seats at the decision-making table for historically underrepresented voices and develop a list of potential partners who can support the mission to improve health outcomes and advance health equity using the Healthy People 2030 framework.
  2. Set up a core set of leaders who are partnership champions.
  3. Decide which public health issues to focus on and identify the impact to each partner and their work.
  4. Center health equity by ensuring that affected community members are in leadership roles, committees, and project management positions. Meaningful engagement with those most affected by the health issue is key to partnership success and sustainability.
  5. Harness the power of diverse partners’ voices and the lived experiences of affected community members to produce a written, living document detailing partnership missions, goals, and role expectations.
  6. Regularly communicate with other partners through diverse communication strategies to ascertain project progress, challenges, and opportunities.
  7. Measure partnership successes and impacts. Use metrics that demonstrate partnerships’ value to public health for evaluation, accountability, and quality improvement purposes.
  8. Employ different public communications channels to disseminate partnership results and resources with and seek input from funders, stakeholders, and the public.
  9. Establish methods of recognition. Celebrating small and big achievements in partnerships builds momentum, accountability, and engagement.
  10. Diversify funding streams to sustain partnerships in the long term.

Conclusion

The implementation-focused strategies and examples in this toolkit will enable S/THAs to create and sustain non-traditional, non-public health sector partnerships to improve health outcomes and advance health equity. The Healthy People 2030 objectives, SDOH framework, and HiAP lens motivate these collaborations and allow for more upstream, holistic approaches to enhancing public health. Moving forward, S/THAs can use the tools and suggestions offered here to build and sustain multisector partnerships, ensuring that they adapt them to their unique needs. Ultimately, when several sectors come together and partner to improve health outcomes and advance health equity, they better respond to public health priorities collaboratively and strategically.

Additional Resources

Healthy People 2030 Resources
Leveraging Healthy People 2030 in Your Work
Developing and Sustaining Strong Multisector Partnerships
Data Sources

The authors of this toolkit would like to recognize ASTHO staff members Taylor Bennett and Karen McCullough for their integral contributions to product design.