Prevention Institute

Health: Our vision is that all people experience their full potential for health, safety, and wellbeing across the life course through thriving, equitable communities. Health is more than the absence of illness and injury. It is a physical, mental, and spiritual condition that allows people to thrive and live fulfilling lives. Our approach to ensuring that all people experience health across the lifespan emphasizes equity and racial justice, community and upstream prevention. Accomplishments include: Completed an Equity Analysis of Washington State Recreation and Conservation granting programs; launched a new community of practice to increase equitable access to parks and open space; partnered with the Big Cities Health Coalition to center racial justice in public health efforts; produced Investing in Equity: Designing and Implementing Public Funding Programs for a Just Recovery in California to ensure the inclusion of equity and racial justice in public funding programs and infrastructure investments; amplified learnings and accomplishments from two community of practice-based initiatives, deepening our support of community power-building; and supported The California Endowment's Social Bond process.

Safety: Prevention Institute defines safety as the freedom from violence and the threat of violence that are necessary for people to thrive and live fulfilling lives. Our work addresses multiple forms of violence (e.g., school, community, intimate partner, sexual assault, and child abuse and exploitation) and the relationships between them. Our approach to ensuring that all people experience safety across the lifespan emphasizes equity and racial justice, community, and upstream prevention. Accomplishments include: Expanded our Safety through Connection initiative in support of healthy relationships and domestic violence prevention; supported a Cost of Gun Violence study whose recommendations were unanimously adopted by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors; advanced messaging, framing, and narrative change on community safety and partnered with the Big Cities Health Coalition on a national campaign; celebrated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's release of Resources for Action, an updated suicide technical package, which we supported; and expanded federal policy partnerships to work more closely with racial justice, social justice, and civil rights advocacy organizations, including to advance gun violence prevention.

Wellbeing: At Prevention Institute, our vision is that all people experience the levels of hope and aspiration, belonging and connection, trust, dignity, safety, and control of destiny that are needed for vibrant mental and behavioral health. Our work focuses on achieving good mental health outcomes, preventing trauma at a community level, addressing despair, and reducing substance misuse and addiction. Our approach emphasizes equity and racial justice, community, and upstream prevention. Accomplishments include: Developed a set of principles to improve mental health services in California through a partnership with the California Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission (MHSOAC); strengthened continuity between upstream prevention and treatment, response, and recovery; completed an update of the 2022 Health Equity Accountability Act Mental Health title; and supported 10 Collaboratives in greater Houston through our Communities of Care initiative as they mobilized resident leaders and youth to address community factors impacting their mental wellbeing.

Other prevention services: In other program work, Prevention Institute provides robust training, technical assistance and consultation services as well as keynotes and other presentations. We provide training, consultation, and strategy development to state and local health departments, public health professionals, community-based organizations, and community members to build capacity to change policies, systems, and environments. Accomplishments include: Hosted Lessons Along the Journey: Taking Action Toward Racial Justice in Public Health Systems to share our health equity and racial justice journey with other public health practitioners; advanced the Houston Health Department's Continuous Equity Improvement Cycle; collaborated with government agencies to explicitly name racism as a public health crisis and commit to racial justice efforts; strengthened our skills and capacity to engage, train, and support community residents and their leadership; and co-authored and contributed to multiple publications to uplift BIPOC community-led leadership and transformation for racial justice and narrative change.