The Health Equity Roadmap Health Equity Transformation Model: Literature Overview

The AHA’s vision is a society of healthy communities where all individuals reach their highest potential for health. With COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, Native American and other communities of color being the latest in a long history of health inequities and health disparities affecting racial minorities in our society, the AHA believes we must confront and eradicate structural racism, which is clearly a serious public health threat. As such, achieving health equity is among AHA’s top priorities for hospitals and health systems nationwide. Read AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack’s July 16, 2021 Perspective column for more about AHA’s mission and commitment to achieving health equity.

Providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services is key to advancing health equity, improving patient safety and quality of care and eliminating health disparities. This literature overview provides a series of resources intended to guide and empower efforts to reach this critical milepost.

This supporting document is intended to provide empirical and theoretical foundation for AHA’s investment in the Health Equity Transformation Model and its Six Levers of Transformation component (more on this below). This is not an extensive literature review, rather a brief synthesis of the literature to provide insight into each lever.

Read the entire report below.