Health Equity Design Labs

The Health Equity Design (HED) Lab convenes thought leaders and community stakeholders to build consensus and incubate the best ideas that promote equity in key policy and program areas ripe for intervention or innovation. Its central focus is on changing policy, systems, and environments to affect the social determinants of health through a process that identifies best practices, recommendations and innovative solutions that can deployed by policymakers and the field at large to advance change, as well as help drive research that addresses gaps in existing knowledge.

The HED Labs will achieve these objectives through three activities:

1. Thought Leadership: Each HED Lab will consist of a carefully selected group of RWJF team members, working groups, grantee representatives/centers, health researchers, practitioners, and advocates, as well as specific issue experts focused on the social determinants of health. Each lab will have approximately twenty (20) people who will develop working relationships, build common language and understanding around the issue at hand, and begin to identify opportunities to improve the physical, mental, and economic well-being of impacted communities, all with a focus on achieving equitable outcomes.
2. Strategy Summits: A strategy summit will be hosted to confirm and refine the recommendations made by each HED Lab. The summits will bring together a cohort of participants from the HED Lab with a larger gathering of approximately fifteen (15) to twenty (20) stakeholders, including community leaders, policymakers and experts, to vet products and strategies proposed in the small group consensus process, discuss challenges and opportunities, and surface new ideas.
3. Action: The last step in the HED Lab process will be to make the identified strategies actionable by (1) producing an Action Strategy Report and other products and (2) providing technical assistance and support to organizations that are in a position to implement the strategies. Technical support may include assistance with third-party coalition building, advocacy, and/or strategic communications.