Explore Health Equity and Social Justice Topics

Latest Resources

Reducing the Risk of Exposure to Lead in Drinking Water

Ensuring access to sufficient, safe drinking water has been an essential function of water utilities, public health, and health care professionals around the world for more than a century. The public health community is often on the front lines, responding to elevated blood lead levels—and can speak to the need for prevention.

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The Power of Collaboration for Environmental Health and Justice

Eboni Cochran knows when there has been a chemical release from one of the manufacturing facilities near her home in west Louisville, Kentucky. Not because of a warning siren, but because she smells it, then feels the symptoms almost immediately: sinus pain, headache, trouble breathing.

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Healthy Water, Healthy People

When it comes to our health, we tend to take water for granted. But as we have been reminded recently, failures within our fragile water systems can quickly become public health disasters. What is worse is that the people who are hit hardest typically live in our most vulnerable communities.

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Promoting Health Equity through Paid Leave

Universal paid family and medical leave promotes health equity by improving health and well-being across the life span and reducing socioeconomic disparities.

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Cleveland’s Greater University Circle Initiative: An Anchor-Based Strategy for Change

Cities are increasingly turning to their “anchor” institutions as drivers of economic development, harnessing the power of these major economic players to benefit urban neighborhoods. This is especially true for cities that are struggling with widespread poverty and disinvestment. Urban anchors – typically hospitals and universities – have sometimes isolated themselves from the poor and struggling neighborhoods that surround them. But this is changing.

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New Research Can Help Health and Housing Experts Arrive at a Common Messaging Frame

We have more evidence than ever before that housing is one of the most important social determinants of health and one of the most efficient platforms for improving health outcomes. In February, Enterprise Community Partners released new research conducted in conjunction with the Center for Outcomes Research and Education, which provided quantitative evidence of the long-term positive impact that affordable housing has on health outcomes for the most vulnerable and difficult to serve.

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Reports and Publications

GIH Bulletin: January/February 2026

One year ago, as we were just one month into the new administration, I wrote that “At a moment when so much has been described as ‘unprecedented,’ and so much of what we value is being attacked, we need to ask ourselves as individuals, organizations, and a field, what do we stand for? What values do we hold, and what will we do and say to defend them?” Today, the answers to these questions are needed more urgently than ever.

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GIH Bulletin: November/December 2025

GIH President and CEO, Cara V. James, delivered these remarks on Protecting the Freedom to Give at the closing of the 2025 Health Policy Exchange, in Arlington, Virginia.

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Behavioral Health Strategies

GIH conducted a survey in late 2024 on funder engagement in behavioral health. This fact sheet, based on a sample of 139 health funders, summarizes the current trends, gaps, successes and challenges for funders. It also highlights philanthropy’s continued commitment to behavioral health while also signaling concern about the upcoming funding environment.  

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