The mission of the National Collaborative for Health Equity is to promote racial and health equity by supporting community leaders, harnessing data, and catalyzing partnerships across the many different sectors that share responsibility for creating a more equitable and just society.
Our Story.
Launched in 2014, the National Collaborative for Health Equity is a young organization with a long history and body of work. NCHE was incubated in 2005 as the Health Policy Institute, one of several institutes at the Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies.
Today, we develop new initiatives to advance the health and racial equity movement while leveraging this history as a national convener and coalition builder for over a decade.
NCHE provides an extensive body of data, tools, and resources to equip leaders from historically marginalized and excluded communities to improve the conditions that shape health.
These tools include leadership support, policy analysis, data mining and analysis, and community organizing and mobilization to address a range of issues that are the ultimate determinants of health. We are committed to addressing the deep racial and ethnic health inequities that persist largely due to structural and institutional racism and exclusion.
2005
The Health Policy Institute (HPI) originated at the Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies and served as an incubator for prominent health equity initiatives of national significance. The spirit and intention of HPI’s mission gave birth to the National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE), launched in 2014.
2006
NCHE’s Place Matters was launched as one of the nation’s first national initiatives to address place and race as determinants of health.
2014
NCHE became a self-sustaining, independent organization of the Health Policy Institute (HPI) of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
2017
NCHE, in partnership with CommonHealth Action, was named the National Program Center for the Culture of Health Leadership Institute.
2019
NCHE introduced the Truth Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) framework as a critical pillar of its efforts to address health equity.
2021
MacArthur Foundation funded the Leveraging HOPE community of practice (CoP).
NCHE chaired the Robert Wood Johnson’s Transforming Public Health Data Commission.
2022
NCHE selected and welcomed its first cohort of 40 leaders to its Culture of Health Leadership Institute.
2023
NCHE hosted its first annual in-person conference, convening hundreds of people in Washington, DC.
2024
NCHE released its second Heart of America Annual Survey.