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.

Launched in 2004, the National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE) is an organization with a long history and body of work. Beginning in 2003, NCHE was originally incubated at the Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies as the Health Policy Institute (HPI), which was one of several public policy institutes.

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 well over two decades.

Our Story.

Founded in 2014, the National Collaborative for Health Equity is a young organization with a long history and body of work. NCHE was originally founded 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 and resources to equip leaders from historically marginalized and excluded communities to improve the conditions that shape health.

These tools include leadership development, 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.

Our History.

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 Insitute (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 it’s second Heart of America Annual Survey.