RWJF Health Leaders

Xavier Brown at the Climate Change March in Washington DC.
RWJF Health Leaders

Xavier Brown at the Climate Change March in Washington DC.

Everyone should have the opportunity to live the healthiest life possible in the place they call home.

People established laws and practices that perpetuate barriers to health equity.
We can reinvent them.


Funding Opportunity

Evidence for Action: Innovative Research to Advance Racial Equity: This initiative prioritizes research to evaluate specific interventions (e.g., policies, programs, practices) that have the potential to counteract the harms of structural and systemic racism and improve health, well-being, and equity outcomes. Learn more and apply.

Research in Progress

  • Policies for Action—Projects investigating public policy impacts on racial equity
  • Systems for Action—Studies to help communities tackle health equity problems cooperatively and share the benefits equitably

We all want to live in a United States where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to reach their best health and wellbeing, no matter their race, ethnicity, or class. That can happen by making sure everyone gets quality healthcare from doctors who respect them. It can happen when families live in communities with well-funded schools and parks instead of polluted air and toxic waste dumps, and in neighborhoods with access to safe and affordable homes. We can build a society where people can move up economically and socially.

But this is not everyone’s reality today. There are laws and social practices that place more value on some lives than others, based on race and class. And that leads to fewer opportunities in jobs, education, lending, and housing, and unfair differences in the legal system. Our ZIP code shouldn’t dictate our health. Everyone should have the opportunity to live the healthiest life possible in the place they call home.

Since people created the laws and social practices that shape these opportunities, we can reinvent them. We can work together so that everyone’s children and grandchildren can have the best possible future, and everyone can achieve their best health and wellbeing.

To reach a Culture of Health that provides everyone in America a fair and just opportunity for health and wellbeing, we must identify, understand, confront, and remove the structural barriers to health and wellbeing, including racism, powerlessness, discrimination, and their consequences.

In connection with past and current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation programs aimed at reducing health inequities and advancing health equity, this collection includes research findings and perspectives on the connections between race, racism, and health.

Addressing Racism in Research Can Transform Public Health

Rooted in the belief that everyone should have a fair opportunity to lead a healthy life, philanthropy and research have often teamed up to address health inequities in the United States. Structural Racism harms individuals and hurts the health of our nation by unfairly lifting up some and oppressing others. Researchers—and all those who apply research in their practice—must collectively hold accountable the systems allowing racism to continue to be a barrier to health equity. Together, we can ensure that health and social policies positively affect all communities for generations to come.

Editor's Pick

Understanding and Mitigating Health Inequities—Past, Current, and Future Direction

Eliminating health disparities will require a movement away from disparities as the focus of research and toward a research agenda centered on achieving racial equity by dismantling structural racism. Perspectives from RWJF Alumna Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO Richard Besser, and Trustee David Williams.

Related News and Insights

Read expert perspectives and the latest research from RWJF to explore the opportunities and complexities of this topic.

Featured Content

Featured Program
http://www.youthempowermentproject.org/
Youth Empowerment Project's the Village Program, established in 2009, provides out-of-school youth ages 16-21 with GED preparation and wrap-around case management services.

Darren Alridge of YEP, works with Justin Alexander, right, on GED prep.

YEP’s founders started the organization in 2004 in order to assist young people returning to New Orleans from correctional facilities. YEP now runs six programs out of three locations which provide over 850 youth annually with GED and literacy services; job skill development; mentoring; intensive case management; enrichment and summer activities; and a holistic set of client-centered ancillary wrap-around services that are unique to each youth and their individual circumstances.

Promoting the Health of Boys and Young Men of Color

Forward Promise aims to promote opportunities for boys and young men of color to heal, grow, and thrive in the face of chronic stress and trauma.

Featured Resource
Father and daughter take a stroll down Whittier Greenway Trail, a 4.5-mile recreational and commuter bikeway and pedestrian path. 
Whittier, California. 2016.  Greenway Trail. Many familes use the trail system to get to school. Signs of Progress.

Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity

The Ferguson Commission focused on guiding the St. Louis region in charting a new path toward healing and positive change after the death of Michael Brown, Jr. Their work resulted in a guide for communities needing to heal from racial truama.

Featured Perspective
Students in the Sports 4 Kids program playing games during recess at Garfield Elementary School, Oakland, California. Sports 4 Kids program (formerly called playworks).

RWJF: We honored sports teams with racist mascots. Not anymore.

In a USA Today op-ed, Richard Besser, RWJF’s president and CEO, discusses changes that the Foundation is making to its annual Sports Award program to more clearly recognize racism and discrimination as factors in health.