N.C. A&T School of Nursing Teams with Cone Health to Test Health Equity Toolkit

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (March 3, 2020) – The North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University School of Nursing has created a partnership with Cone Health to pilot test the health equity toolkit created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), AARP and AARP Foundation.

Health inequities are often the result of policies and decisions that unjustly and unfairly shape our experiences at home, at school, at work, at play, and where we receive health care, said Lenora R. Campbell, Ph.D., dean of North Carolina A&T’s College of Health and Human Sciences. These policies have often persisted for generations, resulting in inequities, long-standing barriers to good health and health disparities, including mortality rates.

The toolkit, a product of RWJF and AARPs’ Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, was designed specifically to empower nurses as policy experts and advocates, recognizing that they are embedded throughout the community in ways other health practitioners are not.

“This initiative aligns with the university’s founding based on education equity and the School of Nursing’s founding based on nursing workforce equity,” said Campbell. “We are especially pleased to have our students engaged in this initiative and have an opportunity to develop leadership and coalition-building skills to create partnerships and build community to promote population health.”

Two teams of nurse leaders, public health and community health nurses, nursing faculty, nursing students and community leaders will each test the health equity toolkit. The teams will work to enhance their understanding of the complexities associated with health equity, population health and social determinants of health, and the health needs of the community to design and implement strategies and interventions around “upstream” systems issues impacting health and health disparities.

“This project places nurses at the forefront of health equity in our region and leverages the strong academic-practice partnership we have with our nursing colleagues at N.C. A&T,” said Kenneth Rempher, Ph.D., a registered nurse and chief nurse executive for Cone Health. “Nurses are perfectly positioned to impact health equity and this joint project will help define how that happens.”

The partnership between N.C. A&T and Cone Health is guided by the North Carolina Action Coalition, the Campaign for Action’s state presence which is committed to transforming health and health care through nursing in North Carolina.