Leveraging Healthy People 2030 to Build Non-Traditional Multisector Partnerships

Developing Multisector Partnerships by SDOH Domain

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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