At the Public Health Alliance of Southern California, we recognize and celebrate the beautiful diversity of the Southern California population and the vast diverse linguistic needs of our region. As our population demographics evolve and the digital world expands, so do the possibilities for human connection that honor language and culture as a fundamental human right.1
For Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJs), there is a critical need to prioritize language access. This extends beyond increasing community access to resources; it includes emergency response, public messaging, risk mitigation, Title VI and ADA compliance, and more. As LHJs strive to advance equitable language access, these efforts must ensure that constituents voices are heard and that jurisdictions are actively creating multilingual spaces to inform, consult, involve, collaborate with, and ultimately move towards community governance and empowerment.2
That is why, we are deeply committed to advancing equitable language access and moving toward realizing language justice in the Southern California region. Language rights, after all, are human rights. And we believe that language, as a fundamental tool for communication and self-expression, is essential for building equitable systems of care and wellbeing. On this page, we provide information on language access and justice and the latest on our ongoing efforts.
Local health jurisdictions from across Southern California are harnessing the power of public health to advance equitable health policies and practices in contracting & procurement as individual departments and in partnership with the communities they serve.
Public health staff across programs and disciplines, including staff from executive leadership, equity offices, contracting & procurement, finance, and others, are coming together to advance and strengthen policies and practices in contracting & procurement that promote health and racial equity across the region.
Accelerator Equity Change Teams will be equipped with the knowledge, tools and resources they need to authentically partner with their community to identify and address barriers to equity in contracting & procurement and become transformational equity leaders and practitioners.
In this session Equity Change Teams worked to develop a shared commitment to advancing regional health equity by participating in the new Equity Accelerator structure and process, established a shared understanding of why Contracting & Procurement is the primary focus area for Equity Accelerator, and obtained a clear understanding of and commitment to completing the Alliance Contracting & Procurement Self-Assessment.
In this session, Equity Change Teams reviewed the goals of the Equity Accelerator, identified existing barrier to equity in current contracting and procurement practices, examined the reasons for current infrastructure, and evaluated their impact. Additionally, teams explored the essential actions required to eliminate these barriers, which included initiating outreach efforts to gather community input.
In this session, Equity Change Teams explored contracting and procurement process changes that have the most immediate opportunity to address equity and evaluated their current and aspirational community engagement practices.
California is home to three regional public health collaboratives based in Southern California, the Bay Area, and the Central Valley. Individually and collectively, these public health collaboratives demonstrate the ability to harness the power of public health at both the local and regional level to advance health and race equity.
Below is a list of aligned public health and equity partner organizations, each bringing a specific focus and lens to the work of advancing health equity and racial justice. These partners have a wide variety of additional resources to support LHJs in their work to build their internal and external capacity to advance equity.
Local Health Jurisdiction Equity Offices
Broader Cross-Governmental Equity Offices
Statewide Equity Offices
Equity Offices housed in other government departments or agencies
The Ad Hoc Language Justice Workgroup is managed and facilitated by the Public Health Alliance of Southern California. If you have questions or would like to learn more about our work, please contact the Public Health Alliance Ad Hoc Leads.
