Advancing Racial Equity in Buncombe County, North Carolina
Dawn Hunter and Zo Mpofu talk about their work in developing a countywide Racial Equity Action Plan to support transformative dialogue, increase civic engagement, and formalize efforts to advance racial equity in Buncombe County, North Carolina.
Within the past year, the City of Asheville and Buncombe County, NC, have declared racism a public health crisis and implemented a number of concrete action steps to address it, including the development and approval of a countywide Racial Equity Action Plan. As part of this work, the county has continued on a path to address structural racism by following a roadmap for the equitable application of the collective impact framework. I had a chance to talk to Dawn Hunter and Zo Mpofu about their recent JPHMP article “Leveraging Collective Impact to Address Structural Racism in Buncombe County, North Carolina.”
About the Authors
Dawn Hunter
Dawn Hunter is the Network for Public Health Law’s Southeastern Region Director. Dawn is an experienced state health department policymaker whose work focuses on research, analysis, implementation, and capacity building related to the use of law and policy to improve health outcomes and advance racial equity.
Zo Mpofu
Zo Mpofu is the Program Manager for Community Health Assessment & Improvement for Buncombe County Public Health. Zo is certified in Collective Impact and a seasoned practitioner of Results Based Accountability. Zo is a frequent contributor to national convenings on policy, community engagement, program innovation, evaluation, and health equity.
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Recommended Reading:
- Leveraging Collective Impact to Address Structural Racism in Buncombe County, North Carolina
- Battling Structural Racism Against Asians in the United States: Call for Public Health to Make the “Invisible” Visible
- Tackling Structural Racism
- Public Health Interventions to Address Health Disparities Associated with Structural Racism, a special supplement of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice
Related Posts on JPHMP Direct:
- When Communities Lead, Positive Health Outcomes Advance
- Using Human-Centered Design for More Inclusive Maternal Health
- Podcast: Making the “Invisible” Visible: Battling Structural Racism Against Asians in the US
- Perspective Transformation on Structural Racism: Learning to See Racism
- Infographic: Community Resilience: A Dynamic Model for Public Health 3.0
- Data Moves at the Speed of Trust: Cross-sector Data Sharing to Support Community Violence Prevention
- Infographic: Conquering the Health Disparities of Structural Racism
Author Profile
- Camelia Singletary, MPH, received her master’s degree in public health from the University of South Carolina in 2015. Her research interests include exploring the implementation of school physical activity programs in combination with nutritional components. She is also interested in analyzing the adoption of physical activity and healthy eating skills from a social-cognitive perspective. As a public health communicator at JPHMP Direct, she hopes to create linkages between evidence-based research, public health coursework, and health certification competencies.
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