Summary 

Decades of underinvestment in our public infrastructure and neoliberal policies that gutted protections for working people, our healthcare, and our wider safety net are vividly exposing their consequences. People of color — most harshly Black, Latinx, and Native people — are disproportionately experiencing the consequences of these conditions. 

In this context, directly impacted communities are naming and working towards transformative solutions around areas including the criminal legal system, housing security, economic security, and healthcare access. Public health needs to act on solutions led by directly impacted communities.

This cross-sector policy platform, if implemented, would challenge the conditions that create inequities in health outcomes. HIP did not generate these ideas — they come directly from grassroots organizations, and their members, who are leading the work. As public health, we need to do everything possible to aid in putting these policies in place to support people during this pandemic and beyond. 

Now — as ever — is the time to set aside concerns of objectivity and politics, and use our power to change the unjust systems that have perpetually harmed the health of communities across the US.

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This platform includes policies across the following issue areas, along with ways for public health to take action:

• Economic Security: Policies to center health equity and people over profits in economic response and recovery plans
• Housing Security: Policies to ensure housing for all, protect renters and homeowners, and prevent debt accumulation during COVID
• Criminal Legal System: Policies to release people, protect those incarcerated, and limit new incarcerations
• Healthcare Access: Policies to ensure everyone has access to testing, treatment, a place for care, and protective equipment