Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide
Implementing an Operational Structure with a Health Equity Lens
What Is the Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide?
Community-Clinical Linkages: Implementing an Operational Structure with a Health Equity Lens (“Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide”) aims to help practitioners incorporate health equity when organizing a community-clinical linkage (CCL) structure and supporting its operations, called an operational structure.
CCLs are connections between community and clinical sectors that aim to improve health within a community. CCLs are an effective, evidence-based approach to preventing and managing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD).
The guide is not intended to serve as step-by-step instructions. Instead, you can use the guide to help decide what to adapt and use to start a new CCL or strengthen an existing one.
To produce this guide, CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) reviewed journal articles and publicly available information on CCLs, such as blogs, briefs, conference reports, and newsletters. DHDSP also spoke with CDC-funded recipients and health equity subject matter experts.
Who Should Use the Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide?
The Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide is for practitioners in public health, community, and clinical sectors who want to incorporate health equity into their organizations’ operational structure.
Why Is Health Equity in CVD Important?
CVD is a health equity issue with significant health, social, and economic consequences. In the United States, people from different racial and ethnic groups have different rates of CVD and different rates of death from CVD. These differences are closely linked with unfair and unjust social, economic, and environmental disadvantages.
Additional Resources
CDC: Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication
CDC: Field Notes: Clinical-Community Health Worker Initiative [PDF – 630 KB]
