Center for Health Equity

CENTER OVERVIEW

The UCSF Center for Health Equity is committed to a world with health equity, in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. 

The Center for Health Equity plays a leading role in research looking at upstream factors to improve health equity in the United States. Improving health equity entails removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, powerlessness, and their consequences. Health equity requires access to good jobs with fair pay; quality education, housing, and health care; and safe environments.

We contribute to efforts for greater health equity by:

- Conducting rigorous research into upstream factors such as racism and other social determinants of health that can inform policies and programs

- Translating and disseminating that research to make an impact

- Building capacity by training and mentoring the next generation of health equity researchers

- Collaborating with and providing technical assistance to local, state, national, and international organizations

Our expertise spans the following:

- Conceptual, methodological, and empiric research on health disparities, health equity, and the social determinants of health

- Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in health and its determinants

- Population-based survey research design, data collection, and analysis

- Analysis and linkage of large population-based secondary data sources

- Life course research ranging from maternal and infant health to chronic disease and aging

- Translation of existing scientific knowledge into materials that are accessible and engaging to wide, non-technical audiences