Summary

This guide is intended to serve as a tool to support community organizers — encompassing informal coalitions, grassroots organizations, and individuals — to engage with governmental public health to advance a campaign or policy change goals. Specifically, this guide introduces organizers to the field of public health and lays out resources for how to engage most effectively with local public health departments (“HDs”).

The World Health Organization defines public health as “all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole.” Within this definition, we see the work of community organizing groups, local and state health departments, and many others. Organizers’ aims may align with the work that HDs are doing to advance health equity. Identifying these shared aims can open up opportunities for strategic partnerships that deepen and strengthen each other’s work toward equity and racial justice.

In this guide:

• What is Public Health, and What Can it Do for You? provides an overview of the aims and scope of public health, along with opportunities to leverage HDs work to support your organizing and advocacy goals
• Know Your HD Lingo offers definitions of key terms and frameworks that HDs often use to help frame your organizing work
• HD Power-Mapping Primer is intended to help you identify entry points in your local HD, and to prepare for power mapping. Please complete this worksheet after reviewing the resources above