HERR Health and Research is a public health non-profit 501(c)3 organization committed to advancing health equity so that women of color have an opportunity to be healthy. Women of color are more likely than women of other races to develop chronic diseases, to experience chronic diseases at an earlier age, have more severe symptoms and progress toward morbidity rapidly. Yet women of color are less likely to be screened for chronic diseases and are more likely to be undertreated and to receive poor quality health care. More importantly, in the United States, there are significant education, wealth, wage and power gaps between women of color and non Hispanic, non black women that place women of color at a disadvantage and with more systemic barriers to achieve health. For this reason, advocates, researchers and community health workers at HERR Health and Research use a social determinants of health framework to address health disparities. We partner with women ensuring together we all participate in creating and implementing the research, policies and programs designed to improve HERR Health and the communities we live in.
The mission of of HERR Health and Research is to advance health equity through community based participatory research, community engagement, health communication and health education.
Lead a cultural shift in which women of color are repositioned through a more equitable distribution of power, opportunity and wealth.
The HERR Health Approach utilizes the following public health strategies, resources and tools to advance health equity:
•Comprehensive Health Data. We believe data should be consistently and accurately collected and analyzed to reflect and address health disparities and poor health outcomes among women of color. HERR Health relies on trusted data from sources like HealthEquityTracker.org and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wide Ranging Online Data for Epidemiological Research to identify differences, or health disparities, in health outcomes between women of color and other groups.
•Social Determinants of Health Framework. Health disparities experienced by women of color are closely related to the social disadvantage created by multiples layers of structural racism and discrimination. HERR Health believes that advancing health equity means addressing the social injustices experienced by women of color and improving the conditions in which she was lives, learns, works and worships.
•Community Engagement. HERR Health recognizes that the relationships between and among women of color are the core of health equity. It is these relationships that provide the support, strength, advocacy and dialogue needed to address the issues that matter most. HERR Health works alongside health advocates at the local level to ensure her voice is heard and her story is told.
•Digital Health. HERR Health implements initiatives with the use of digital health technology. Telehealth connects this specialized community and population with valuable opportunities to meet a wide range of needs that expand beyond direct health care services. We use electronic communications as a tool to advance health equity by providing health education, information, support, public health messages and telling her story.
•Diverse and Inclusive Research. Research, both clinical and epidemiological, should reflect our population’s diversity; however, it is also imperative that women of color researchers have the opportunity to investigate the questions pertinent to health disparities. Health equity research projects and teams should reflect the same principles of inclusion and diversity as is needed in the population served.
•Evidenced Based Program Development, Evaluation and Implementation. The goal of HERR Health and Research is to ultimately translate research science into policy, practice and programs. Public health science and research drive public health programs and policies and it is this interaction that advances health equity.
