Incorporating Equity into IVP work

In this INbetween episode, host Mighty Fine talks about the recently released "Equity in Injury and Violence Prevention Vision and Call to Action" document from Safe States Alliance. Recommendations provided to advance equity injury and violence prevention are provided in this resource, and Mighty shares his thoughts - encouraging  listeners to utilize this resource and take action to advance equity in their IVP work.


https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.safestates.org/resource/resmgr/ivpequitycalltoaction/IVP_Equity_Call_to_action.pdf

Transcript

Mighty Fine: 0:17

Welcome to the injury and violence prevention INdepth podcast. My name is Mighty Fine, and I'm the host of the Safe States Alliance production. In this space, we engage in dialogue on a variety of issues to help inform you, our listeners on the latest trends and hot topics in injury and violence prevention. Today's episode is an in between which are shorter episodes that happen in between the longer ones. This is where I get a chance to talk directly to you. And before we get started, I'd like to thank our sponsor for today's episode, which is the Education Development Center Solutions. They offer versatile consultation and training for education, community and health care systems committed to improving prevention and wellbeing for their workforce and the people they serve. And the resource we'd like to feature today is the community-led suicide prevention, which helps communities come together to create and reach their suicide prevention goals. This web toolkit provides step-by-step information and how-to tools for comprehensive suicide prevention. It can be accessed online by logging into communitysuicideprevention.org. Thanks again to our sponsors. All right, let's get started. Today I'll be focusing on the equity and injury and violence prevention vision and call to action resource, which was developed and led by Safe States Alliance and supported by nearly 50 other organizations. We know health equity isn't just about equal access to health care, it's so much more than that, right. It's about ensuring that all people have the opportunity to achieve their best health, regardless of their background, or any other circumstances. Moreover, in a racially equitable society, the distribution of society's benefits and burdens will not be skewed by one's race. Racial Equity holds society to a higher standard, as it demands that we pay attention to not just individual level of discrimination, but to overall social and health outcomes. Thus, achieving health equity requires valuing all individuals and populations equitably, right. We recognize and rectify historical injustices, and we provide resources according to and circling back to sort of this racial and health equity piece. We know that by addressing racial and health equity and injury and violence prevention, based on truth, racial healing and transformation pillars, it provides a framework for informing community-led action, improving health outcomes for all members of society and eradicating structural inequities. So let's talk about this resource that's going to be useful to you - the equity in injury and violence prevention, vision and call to action. Well, it provides recommended actions that IVP practitioners and researchers can take to support more equitable outcomes for disadvantaged populations. The recommendations are inspired by discussions during the IVP and equity convening, and developed in concert with the National Collaborative for Health Equity. These recommendations aimed to broaden the reach of injury and violence prevention in programs by reducing racial and health inequities through community engagement, partnership initiatives and policy strategies. The recommendations are based on a summary report from the IVP and equity convening. And I will share a few of those recommendations with you today. I can't give you everything because I encourage you to check out the full resource which can be accessed on the safestates.org website. Let's start with community engagement. We have to acknowledge and explore past and present inequities, to understand the historical trauma as well as the resilience of individuals and communities. We must also create opportunities where communities lead efforts related to identifying IVP policy solutions. So we have to ensure this integration of community and it needs to be intentional. Let's now move to partnerships. We must collaborate across federal, national, state, and local levels to lead transformative work that infuses equity approaches into injury and violence prevention. And we have to leverage and enhance existing data systems, methodologies and surveillance activities to capture quantitative and qualitative equity-centered data that explores within the margins of disadvantaged groups, highlights community resilience and, share success stories. I think those success stories are really important because it helps folks understand how these concepts are operationalized. And it makes it real to them. And let's close it out with policy. For starters, we have to ensure that language and requirements and funding announcements are inclusive and accessible to communities with the greatest needs - really important for us to also educate national, state and local policymakers on the benefits of addressing and investing in these initiatives, you know, what's the return on investment? And what's the social return on the investment. As I mentioned, that's just a snippet of the resource. I encourage you again to check it out, read it thoroughly, and see how you can apply those practices into the work that you're doing. It's available on safestates.org. And as I conclude today's episode, let's remember that the path to a safer, more just society starts with embracing an equity- centered approach to injury and violence prevention. By recognizing and addressing the root causes of disparities, advocating for those most in need, and working with community to amplify their voices, we can create sustained transformation. So again, with that, I'm asking you to commit to building a future where everyone has the opportunity to reach their highest potential. As always, thanks for listening to another episode of IVP in depth. Be sure to subscribe and listen to us on Apple podcast, Spotify, or Google podcasts. You can also follow safe states on X are formerly known as Twitter at Safe States the same for LinkedIn. And as I've already mentioned, be sure to check out our website safestates.org and there you'll find a host of injury and violence prevention tools and resources for your use. We'd like to thank our sponsors again, for today's episode, the Education Development Center Solutions, be sure to check out the resource that I mentioned, as it will be very beneficial to anyone doing suicide prevention where this is your host Mighty Fine signing off and until next time, stay safe and injury free.