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CHEM Pillars of Health Equity®
A Framework for Comprehensive Transformation
Our revolutionary assessment tool measures and builds health equity across all dimensions of community life. More than metrics — this is a blueprint for creating conditions where everyone can thrive.
CHEM's Health Equity Framework
We believe that access to full health and wellbeing should be certain for all people despite differences resulting from designations of race, ethnicity, language, age, ability, gender, socioeconomic status, any other circumstance or identity, and the intersections among these.
Our framework rests on a foundational understanding: true health is never individual but always collective. From this source flows four interconnected pillars that, together, create the conditions for comprehensive wellbeing. By assessing our efforts through these pillars, we can measure our progress toward genuine health equity.
Social Equity
Ensuring fairness and justice in systems, policies, and opportunities
Economic Equity
Creating pathways to wealth-building and economic self-determination
Environmental Equity
Fostering healthy, sustainable communities and ecosystems
Human Equity
Optimizing physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing for all
Ubuntu: Source Pillar
I am because we are
Full Definition
Ubuntu recognizes that individual wellness is inseparable from collective wellness. It is the understanding that love — the intercession necessary to make all beings healthy, happy, and whole — forms the foundation of all health equity work. This Source Pillar acknowledges our fundamental interconnectedness and interdependence with one another and with nature.
Without this foundation, the other pillars cannot stand. With it, transformation becomes not just possible but inevitable.
From this source flows
The wisdom to create Social Equity
The commitment to ensure Economic Equity
The reverence to protect Environmental Equity
The compassion to nurture Human Equity
Reflecting an active commitment to each other's thriving.
Social Equity
Ensuring fairness and justice in systems, policies, and opportunities
Full Definition
The assuredness of fairness in policy, regulation, and in the distribution of social resources and services to ensure that policy, social constructs, and institutional practices:
  1. Assure economic, environmental, and human equity
  1. Demonstrate cultural respect and preservation
  1. Facilitate the social belonging, cooperation, cohesion, trust, participation, protection, and productivity of all people
Assessment Questions
Do all community members have equal voice in decisions?
Are cultural traditions respected and supported?
Is there fair representation in leadership?
Economic Equity
Economic Equity Creating pathways to wealth-building and economic self-determination
Full Definition
The assuredness of:
  1. Economic reciprocity
  1. Fair access to opportunities and services that:
  • Secure and grow economic resources such as income, savings, assets, and capital
  • Bring personal and collective agency over the flow of economic resources through a household or community
Assessment Questions
Can all community members build wealth?
Are there barriers to business ownership?
Is economic opportunity distributed fairly?
Environmental Equity
Fostering healthy, sustainable communities and ecosystems
Full Definition
The assuredness of access to and preservation of:
Clean Resources
Clean air, water, land, soil, and nutritious food
Outdoor Spaces
Clean, natural, and safe outdoor spaces
Indoor Spaces
Clean and safe indoor spaces
Housing Options
Clean, safe, and consistent housing options
Assessment Questions
  • Do all communities have access to clean environments?
  • Are environmental burdens distributed fairly?
  • Can communities shape their environmental future?
Human Equity
Optimizing physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing for all
Full Definition
The assuredness of access to experiences, opportunities, and resources that optimize:
  1. An individual's knowledge, skills, ability, capability, adaptability, introspection, empathy, enlightenment, self-regard, and self-actualization
  1. Their physical, mental, and spiritual fitness
Assessment Questions
Can all people reach their full potential?
Is high quality healthcare truly accessible to everyone?
Are diverse healing traditions honored?
Put the Pillars Into Practice
Ready to assess and advance health equity in your organization or community? Our tools translate the Pillars framework into actionable steps for transformation:
Organizational Assessment Tool
Evaluate your organization's equity impact
Community Scorecard
Measure neighborhood health equity progress
Policy Analysis Framework
Assess legislation through an equity lens
Educational Curriculum
Teach the Pillars in your programs
A Growing Movement
Organizations worldwide are adopting the CHEM Pillars as their north star for equity work. From Portland's Cannabis Policy Oversight Team to healthcare systems, educational institutions, and community organizations — the movement grows each time another group commits to measuring what matters.
Join organizations worldwide in using this proven framework to advance health equity
Together, We Rise
Health Equity is the assuredness of access to full health and wellbeing. Join us in creating a future where health equity is assured for all people.
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