Equitable Health Lab
Health, Wellness & Fitness - Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Equitable Health Lab Employees
Equitable Health Lab Details
Equitable Health Lab literally "grew" out of university and community participatory action research collaborative between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Equity Matters and the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation named Project Insight. The project was designed and implemented on a shoestring budget of $2,500. The purpose of the project was to investigate barriers and facilitators to healthy eating for low-income residents living in a food desert. The project used a mixed methods research design and integrated major themes from ethnographic interviews, focus groups and community conversations with publicly available health statistics to provide a rich composite of the problem and possible solutions. Over 60 community residents participated in the dissemination event, and were hungry to transform the research results into actionable solutions to improve the community. Following the dissemination event, the study team was approached by the President of the Poppleton Community Association who was motivated to use participatory action research to support their efforts in creating healthy spaces to motivate behavior change. Equitable Health Lab was established in July 2014 with the mission of demonstrating innovative strategies that integrate people and places to address our city's most pressing public health problems. Our priorities are: 1) to eliminate health disparities, and 2) to improve health overall. We seek to increase awareness of the root causes of health injustice and social determinants of health and to increase commitment to improve conditions that promote better health for all.
