LOCATION: Flint, MI, U.S.A.

ORGANIZATION TYPE: Government

FOCUS AREA: Children / Families, Education, Environment / Land Use, Food security / Nutrition, Health Care Delivery, Housing / Neighborhoods, Income & Wealth, Media / Journalism, Mental health / Psychology, Public Health, Public Policy, Race / Ethnicity, Social Inclusion, Transportation

HEALTH EQUITY INITIATIVES: We have included health equity and social justice at nearly every level in our 2008 - 2012 strategic plan (goal, values, intermediate outcomes, organizational strategies, and public health system strategies). We started conversations about the Unnatural Causes series first by showing excerpts to our Board of Health, to the Genesee County Board of Commissioners, and then to our staff. We thought our local policy makers and our staff would appreciate and benefit from being exposed to the series before it was aired on PBS and before we hosted viewings in our community. We have shown different episodes from the series to county department heads to start conversations about how their departments can influence the social determinants of health and ultimately health equity. We mailed postcards to about 1,000 of our partners in the local public health system encouraging them to tune in to the series on PBS, and we hosted viewings of parts of the series for these partners at our department. We established a Health Equity track at our Public Health Week Conference in April 2008, at which we showed one episode from the Unnatural Causes series and held a panel discussion with local experts on health disparities. We succeeded in our advocacy to have the Great Lakes Chapter of the Society for Public Health Education choose Health Equity as its theme for its annual conference in May 2008. An episode of Unnatural Causes was shown at that conference coupled with discussion by a panel of experts. Because of our strategic plan, we have drafted a five-year internal health equity work plan. We are completing the awareness phase of this plan and will transition from there into the dialog phase. In years 4 and 5 we will engage in specific action steps.

ACTIVITIES WITH UNNATURAL CAUSES CAMPAIGN:
- Host a screening event featuring UNNATURAL CAUSES
- Engage in media outreach
- Use the series and materials in trainings or classes
- Post and share information about the series with members and constituents