Our Theory of Change
We transform the root causes that produce inequitable health outcomes.
By working in partnership to confront unjust power imbalances and dismantle systems of oppression, we target root causes by:
Aligning and building power with social justice movements to advance structural solutions
Strengthening democracy and governmental public health’s commitment to equity and justice
Deepening the health equity ecosystem and transforming our field to leverage its power
Growing a liberation culture that integrates our hearts and our heads in relationships and practice
We advance equity and justice by shifting power to communities experiencing the
greatest harm.
All the work we do — our advocacy, organizing, research, capacity building, and bridging — aims to change who holds power and how power is held by shifting power to communities.
Power, which we understand through Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s definition as “the ability to achieve purpose..the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes,” comes in the form of resources; access to decision making across various arenas (i.e., legislative, administrative, judicial, electoral, corporate); alliances and networks we can leverage; and narratives that define what is valuable, possible, and true.
Power is both fundamental and instrumental to health. We believe that public health as a field needs to build and leverage our own power to benefit the communities experiencing the greatest harm.
We must identify and dismantle the systems of oppression that create inequities.
Systemic oppression, embedded in our laws, policies, practices, norms, and culture, functions to maintain power and advantage for certain people, communities, and sectors at the expense of others.
At HIP, we counter the assumption that these hierarchies and power imbalances are given or natural. We lead explicitly with an analysis of structural racism and White supremacy as a root cause of harm in our society because of its enormous role in shaping inequity in the US in particular, and its pervasiveness across every single institution in the country, alongside capitalism, patriarchy, and ableism. Building collective health requires reckoning with these historical and ongoing harms, and centering the experiences, knowledge, and leadership of those most impacted.
We achieve sustainable, long-term change through social justice movements.
Social change happens through organized social movements: the intentional and sustained efforts of grassroots and advocacy movements to build power and deep democracy and transform material conditions. Social justice movements have the power to change the terms of political debate; our laws, policies, and governmental institutions; and our wider culture.
For us, it’s not about winning one policy change or an election. It’s about making a steadfast commitment to using our resources and expertise to support people who are most impacted by injustice and inequity to ultimately transform the conditions and trajectory of our society. Aligning with and supporting social movements is a core strategy necessary for public health to achieve our dream of health equity.
We build bridges between public health and grassroots social justice movements to advance structural solutions, together.
We want the field of public health to see itself as part of larger social and racial justice movements to achieve health for all. This requires building bridges across our worlds, so that public health’s voice, evidence, and resources can be more strategically aligned with social movements that are leading the change we need to advance health equity. We need to weave and strengthen a deeper, wider ecosystem together and leverage our various forms of collective power to navigate the politics, power dynamics, and complexities of our respective spheres of influence, via inside-outside strategy and other tactics.
Governmental public health should leverage its power in the administrative arena to strengthen democracy and grow communities’ co-governing power.
Authentic democracy — where all people can collectively shape the policies and systems that impact our lives — is essential to health equity. We believe our government has a critical role and responsibility to advance equity, particularly because of the long and ongoing legacy of harms that oppressive government policies have caused. We need to repair and transform government institutions so they are inclusive, transparent, responsive, and accountable to communities facing inequities.
We also need to defend our institutions from right-wing attacks, so that government can stand firmly in its proper role: to defend the collective health of all against political and corporate pressure to concentrate wealth, power, and access to health and wellbeing in the hands of the few.
Transforming society requires transforming ourselves.
Analysis alone will not suffice to create a just society: we need to tap into the emotional and physical ways we react and self-regulate to cultivate deep trust and relationships. We call this integrating the head and heart.
We all hold histories and knowledge in our bodies. Denial, disconnection, and shaming of our inherent knowledge is one of the ways that White supremacy, patriarchy, and other intersecting power systems are perpetuated.
Dismantling oppressive systems requires tapping into that knowledge to inform how we show up in the work. We need to normalize creating space in our work and movements to build deeper relationships, to feel and heal, in order to create the conditions for structural change and shape a new liberation culture that centers our humanity.
Health in Partnership’s 2025-2030 Strategic Plan
