Welcome to Health Equity Collective

About Us

The Health Equity Collective is a multi-sector effort focused on creating a more equitable health ecosystem in Greater Houston. The Collective has nearly 800 members representing over 180 organizations and more than 50 coalitions aligned with a shared mission to establish an impactful, sustainable, data-driven system to promote health equity and address the social drivers of health outcomes. 

Through this data sharing ecosystem, we aim to implement a comprehensive population-level approach to understand and effectively and efficiently address the social determinants of health (SDOH) across our region. We will start with food insecurity, document the factors driving food insecurity, and measure the impact of community interventions targeting food insecurity on health outcomes at the population level. This comprehensive population-level approach will then be leveraged and expanded across the spectrum of SDOH. See here for details on the process of selecting food security as an indicator of success for an SDOH ecosystem approach .

Three major systems initiatives currently underway:

1. We are building a community voice framework and strategies to inform health equity efforts in the Greater Houston region.
2. Community health workers play a critical role in serving as the human capacity of care coordination for social determinants of health. The Health Equity Collective, in partnership with the Houston Health Department, is strengthening equity, capacity, and sustainability of CHWs as a workforce in our region. Learn more here
3. The Collective is also improving the technology capacity of care coordination for social determinants of health in our region via the development and implementation of a bi-directional closed-loop referral technology between healthcare and social service organizations by leveraging the existing Health Information Exchange, for the Greater Houston area. In addition to these initiatives, the Health Equity Collective has workgroups collaborating on food security, mental health/substance use, and health and housing.

While our work is anchored in Greater Houston, our impact is felt across the footprint of our member organizations which span across the state and the country. 

Visit our website to learn more